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Over the southern African region the geomagnetic field is weak and changes rapidly. For this area series of geomagnetic field measurements exist since the 1950s. We take advantage of the existing repeat station surveys and observatory annual means, and clean these data sets by eliminating jumps and minimizing external field contributions in the original time-series. This unique data set allows us to obtain a detailed view of the geomagnetic field behaviour in space and time by computing a regional model. For this, we use a system of representation similar to harmonic splines. Initially, the technique is systematically tested on synthetic data. After systematically testing the method on synthetic data, we derive a model for 1961-2001 that gives a detailed view of the fast changes of the geomagnetic field in this region.
The origin of the approximately 1000 km-long Beattie Magnetic Anomaly (BMA) in South Africa remains unclear and contentious. Key issues include the width, depth and magnetization of its source. In this study, we use uniformly magnetized spheres, prisms and cylinders to provide the simplest possible models which predict the 1 km-altitude aeromagnetic measurements along a profile across the BMA. The source parameters are adjusted by forward modeling. In case of a sphere, an inversion technique is applied to refine the parameters. Our results Suggest that two similarly magnetized and adjacent sources. With a vertical offset, can explain the observed magnetic anomaly. The best fitting model corresponds to two highly-magnetized (>5 A m(-1)) sheet-like prisms, extending from 9 to 12 kill depth, and from 13 to 18 kill depth, respectively, and with a total width reaching 80 km. Other less-preferred models show thicker and deeper magnetized volumes. Associated magnetizations seem to be mostly induced, although a weak remanent component is required to improve the fit. We also compare our results With the interpretation of independent magnetotelluric and seismic experiments along the same profile. It suggests that the geological sources for the BMA are mostly located in the middle crust and may be displaced by a shear zone or a fault. Contrary to previous models suggesting a serpentinized sliver of paleo-oceanic crust within the Natal-Namaqua Mobile Belt, we propose that granulite-facies mid-crustal rocks within this belt may cause the BMA.
Two recent magnetic field models, GRIMM and xCHAOS, describe core field accelerations with similar behavior up to Spherical Harmonic (SH) degree 5, but which differ significantly for higher degrees. These discrepancies, due to different approaches in smoothing rapid time variations of the core field, have strong implications for the interpretation of the secular variation. Furthermore, the amount of smoothing applied to the highest SH degrees is essentially the modeler’s choice. We therefore investigate new ways of regularizing core magnetic field models. Here we propose to constrain field models to be consistent with the frozen flux induction equation by co-estimating a core magnetic field model and a flow model at the top of the outer core. The flow model is required to have smooth spatial and temporal behavior. The implementation of such constraints and their effects on a magnetic field model built from one year of CHAMP satellite and observatory data, are presented. In particular, it is shown that the chosen constraints are efficient and can be used to build reliable core magnetic field secular variation and acceleration model components.