A magnetic susceptibility logger for archaeological application

✍ Scribed by Rinita A. Dalan

• Book ID: 102677609
• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2001
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 546 KB
• Volume: 16
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0883-6353
• DOI: 10.1002/1520-6548(200103)16:3<263::aid-gea1004>3.0.co;2-m

✦ Synopsis

Investigations of magnetic susceptibility have been used to (1) define sites, activity areas, features, buried soils, and cultural layers, (2) build and correlate stratigraphic sequences, and (3) understand site-formation and postdepositional processes. Archaeologists are limited in these endeavors, however, by the instruments available for field studies of susceptibility. A prototype instrument developed for archaeological application logs volume magnetic susceptibility down a small-diameter (ca. 2.2 cm) core-hole made with a push-tube corer. Measurements can be made rapidly, approximately 10 times faster than collecting samples either by coring or from an exposed section, to depths of 1.6 m below the surface. The prototype logger was field-tested on a mid-Holocene stratigraphic section in southeastern North Dakota where it clearly distinguished various soils and sediments, including a buried occupation layer.