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Studying Ancient Magnetic Lines Via Maori Stone Ovens

kamalktk

kamalktk

Antediluvian
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Feb 5, 2011
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More at the link.
Wasn't sure if New Science or Earth Mysteries was the proper forum

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20520454

"Scientists are studying the Earth's magnetic field using the stones that line Maori steam ovens.

The cooking process generates so much heat that the magnetic minerals in these stones will realign themselves with the current field direction.

An archaeological search is under way in New Zealand to find sites containing old ovens, or hangi as they are known.

Abandoned stones at these locations could shed light on Earth's magnetic behaviour going back hundreds of years.

"We have very good palaeomagnetic data from across the world recording field strength and direction - especially in the Northern Hemisphere," said Gillian Turner from Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand.

"The southwest Pacific is the gap, and in order to complete global models, we're rather desperate for good, high-resolved data from our part of the world," she told BBC News."
 
Here's a 2016 update indicating this approach worked and giving an overview of the results ...

Hangi stones and magnetism
From Our Changing World, 9:46 pm on 25 February 2016

“In the hangi process the oven stones are heated to red or even white heat, well above the temperature at which they are magnetised. As they cool down in situ they gain a record of the magnetic field.”
Gillian Turner, geophysicist, Victoria University of Wellington

Hangi stones from archaeological sites around New Zealand are providing an extraordinary window into how the magnetic field in the southwest Pacific has been changing.

They have revealed that over the past 600 years the declination, or direction of a compass needle, has varied significantly, moving from 5° west of North to today’s 20° east of North.

The inclination of vertical component of the magnetic field hasn’t changed so dramatically. “It’s steepened by 3° or 4° over that time,” says Gillian Turner, a geophysicist at Victoria University of Wellington.

The changing strength of the magnetic field is the hardest component to measure, and Gillian says that while it doesn’t seem to have changed much in the past 400 years there are exciting hints at some of the oldest archaeological sites (between 400 and 600 years ago), that the “field has gone through some bigger amplitude, more wild, changes in strength. And that’s something we’re seeing in present day places like the South Atlantic Ocean.”

“In the south Atlantic there’s a big anomaly in the magnetic field that’s allowing the solar wind particles to get lower in the atmosphere,” says Gillian. “They are affecting things like satellite systems.”

Gillian points out that there are variations in the magnetic field in different parts of the world depending on the behaviour of the earth’s core directly below. The hangi stone project is focusing on the magnetic field in the southwest Pacific.
Click to expand...

SOURCE: https://www.radionz.co.nz/national/...ld/audio/201790432/hangi-stones-and-magnetism
 
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