Palaeomagnetism of Holocene and Late Pleistocene sediments from Lago di Mezzano and Lago Grande di Monticchio (Italy): initial results

Palaeomagnetic records of the geomagnetic secular variation reaching back t o 31 and 102 kyr cal. BP, respectively, were obtained from two sediment cor es from Lago di Mezzano (central Italy) and two cores from Lago Grande di M onticchio (southern Italy). Intra-lake correlation was based on continuous high-resolution susceptibility measurements and discrete dry density sample s. Characteristic remanent magnetization (ChRM) of all 4800 samples was det ermined by analysis of the results of progressive alternating field (AF)-de magnetization. Intra-lake comparison of the resulting ChRM-directions confi rms that the inclination and declination records reflect the palaeosecular variation of the local geomagnetic field. Composite curves of geomagnetic p alaeosecular variations (PSV) were created for each lake in order to compar e the reconstructed PSV records with those from Lac du Bouchet (Massif Cent ral, France) and Lac de Joux (Switzerland). The good agreement in the gener al patterns of the inclination and declination records of all lakes mention ed above, confirms the reconstructed PSV records of the Italian lakes inves tigated. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.