MAGNETIC ANOMALY MAP FOR NORTHERN, WESTERN, AND EASTERN EUROPE

Abstract

All of the available data describing the Earth’s magnetic field in Northern, Western, and Eastern Europe (c. 3 × 106 data points) are compiled and presented at a scale of 1:20 400 000. The compilation meets two requirements (i) that the total field intensity anomalies reflect a survey acquired at an altitude of 3000 m above m.s.l. and during the same epoch, 1980.0; and (ii) that the anomalies are residuals after subtracting the common reference field DGRF1980. As the data span many epochs, geomagnetic data recorded at observatories and repeat stations were used to determine the best model for estimating the secular variation in all data up to 1980. This yielded magnetic anomalies with wavelengths up to the order of 2000 km. The precision of the resultant anomalies (amplitudes about – 1700 nT to 8000 nT) differ between ± 10 nT in Central Europe and ± 20 nT in the outer parts of the compilation. The resultant anomaly map contains a wealth of information to geoscientists studying global tectonic processes and the deep crustal composition of major continental crusts. It clearly shows the different anomaly patterns between the Palaeozoic and Precambrian crusts of Central and Eastern Europe. These anomalies are interpreted as lateral changes of magnetization in a horizontal plate. A comparison between the low-level compilation and maps derived from the MAGSAT satellite at about 360 km altitude allows the description of the two different crust types in Europe.