Cleveland dyke, UK. NEW!

Hi Becky and others,

I have just seen your arguments on the site regarding my work on the cleveland dyke in UK. I am the author of the thesis in Durham University and may be of help.

Cheers!

Elijah Mwandoe
Chief Geophysicst
Taita Industrial Minerals Ltd.
Kenya. East Africa.

Elijah Mwandoe
Geophysicist



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/21/2012 12:10PM by ELIJAH MWANDOE (2).

Hello Elijah, and welcome to Mindat!

Your thesis was most interesting, and thank you for the offer of help. We have a Mindat member (Heath Barnes), who has been fascinated by magnetism in the rocks of the Cleveland Dyke, particularly in an area near Redcar-Cleveland, NE England. In fact, the magnets he has used are most likely rare-earth composites of varying quality (and therefore, of varying "strength"), imported from China and found in nearly all toys, fridge magnets, etc. in the UK and Europe. He does not seem to believe they are all rare-earth composites, but I strongly suspect they are, based on their encapsulated appearance and their behaviour. I went out to the dyke area, and found that the dyke rock did NOT deflect a sensitive compass needle, nor did a small, standard bar magnet respond at all, although I am well aware that rare-earth type magnets stick to many rocks. Heath also thinks that the rocks in one area (an exposure in a small stream, or "beck" in the Cleveland area) show significantly greater magnetism. He demonstrates this by carefully holding a rare earth magnet against the rock, letting go slowly, and usually it sticks. As I am sure you have read, the arguments and remarks made led many Mindat members (including me) to despair, and some threads were (mercifully) closed down.

Some authors have referred to the dyke rocks as basalt, others call it basaltic andesite...that, however, is not particularly important here. What may be helpful would be a brief explanation - for Heath - of the difference between the "magnetic" properties/anomalies detected on a large scale that helped map the dyke (and the Weardale granite!), and the very weak magnetism of the basaltic rocks resulting from inclusions of certain minerals that allow them to attract rare-earth magnets. Feel free to give up if the responses become silly.

Many thanks - you've done well, Chief Geophysicist!! Wish I could go to Kenya! Best wishes, Becky

Becky did you view the video's roger took at Coldbery and the whinn sill at high force, and as ivesaid many many times before the assortment of magnets ive attatched to the basaltic andesite of the Cleveland dyke, are most deffinently not all rare earth magnets, please pm Roger the magnets i use if you will not listen to me. And alsobefore as you rightly say any sillyness starts again its this simple anyone including Elijah are more than welcome to join both me and roger at anyof the locations, and see for yourselves ps how heavy was your bar magnet?

Heath
Have you bothered to read Elijahs masters thesis ( [etheses.dur.ac.uk] ) or are you only interested in promoting your own blog, please take the time to read this very constructive and detailed thesis.

Regards george

edit
Elijah thank you for a very informative thesis on the cleveland dyke, good luck in your future endevours!
george



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/21/2012 09:29PM by George Creighton.

Elijah - that is a very impressive and detailed treatment of the subject.

Hi Elijah,

Fascinating thesis. I'm still reading it, it's heavy going as I'm learning as I'm going! Just the sort of details which hopefully will explain Heath's findings. Assuming you may have attempted to trawl through the various threads regarding his finds, you may know that I've been on a couple of field trips with Heath. We collected samples from the Cleveland dyke at the Stainton and Coldberry outcrops, and from the Whin Sill at High Force. I was in Upper Teesdale two days ago, with the intention of getting one more sample, this time from the dyke outcrop at the headwaters of the Bowlees Beck. Weather was too bad though.

Our intention was to have a complete set of samples to send off to Texas, for Nathalie & Paul Brandes to examine and decide whether or not they are interesting enough to do sections with. I don't want to waste their time, or my money in shipping, so I have a question for you Elijah, do you think the magnetic properties of the dyke stone is fully explained? Is there anything unusual about it? In other words, are Heath and I investigating something that is already well known? If so, there's little more I can do on the subject, and I'll get back to collecting mineral crystals..... however I've taken to carrying a magnet with me at all times!

Regards,
Rog

Hi guys,

Sorry, it took me some time to get back to you as I was in the field mapping other magnetic dykes in Voi, Kenya......Roger, thanks for mentioning your recent trip in Upper Teesdale, guess you walked right on my old footsteps! Bowlees Beck, High force... tough memories one winter in 2003! My nose almost peeled off as I had just come from Kenya!

Back to magnetics; the nature of the dyke's magnetism is such that the source is the north west island of Mull. I could establish its reversed negative signature and that it is tertiary. This will be the same all through where the dyke is found be in in situ or transported. The only change will occur if lightning or magnetotelluric forces interact with the specimen. I also established that the depth to the bottom of the dyke is unknown (quite large!) This means that there possibly was a long narrow fault from north west to south east Britain that was occupied by the tholeeitic dolerite during the emplacement. Or the fracture was caused immediately after the Mull eruption.

In the formation of the dyke, normally the material composition causes the alignment of the magnetic particles to conform with the current earth's magnetic field. That is how we manage to map the age and orientation. The strength of the magnetism (call it attraction to magnets!) will be a variation of intensity of ferromagnetic assemblages in the rock. However, since the source of the cleveland dyke is one then the intensity will be the same. The variance will occur where the host rock or impurities mix with the dolerite during formation to dilute the magnetic quality.

Another indicator is that dykes are narrow long bodies and this enhances the magnetic property of polarity; north and south. The edges quickly become either polarity due to the dimension as compared to a tabular body like the Whin Sill or some dome.

Coming to the behavior of bar magnets, it is not important whether the magnet is made from whatever material as long as it prohibits magnetism. The stronger the magnet, the more pronounced will be the attraction. The strange action of the compass needle or a magnet not responding to the dyke outcrop could be the result of neutralization by either lightning or Tellurics. It is not abnormal and I found several outcrops of the dyke like that- even weathering from polarized storms can affect magnetization. How do you demagnetize a permanent magnet? Just hit one pole with a similar pole of another magnet several times! It happens naturally.

I hope I have answered most querries, but to answer the last one from Curry, you can write a thesis about the magnetic variation of the Cleveland dyke and research on the causes! I will collaborate and can make it to UK when necessary. The unique magnetic signature can also be used to fill the gaps where the dyke does not outcrop... is it lurking somewhere deep down or is it totally absent... all the way to the south east!!!

Cheer guys!

Elijah

Some authors have referred to the dyke rocks as basalt, others call it basaltic andesite...that, however, is not particularly important here. What may be helpful would be a brief explanation - for Heath - of the difference between the "magnetic" properties/anomalies detected on a large scale that helped map the dyke (and the Weardale granite!), and the very weak magnetism of the basaltic rocks resulting from inclusions of certain minerals that allow them to attract rare-earth magnets.

The cleveland dyke is dolerite, and differs from the Whin Sill dolerite which has quartzite in it. The thin sections i observed were very elaborative in this difference.

I used GIS techniques to overlay the aeromagnetic anomalies with the ground magnetics and the topography with exposed outcrops. it eventually looked obvious that it is the dyke causing all these problems in Harwood! The sheep were dying in the vicinity without explanation due to cadmium poisoning. My farmer friend also died soon after in June 2003 from a sudden stroke. Milk with cadmium from his cattle????

Magnetization can also occur from Leaching. This is a mechanical process where magnetic material assembles and later compacts in an environment that later bears magnetic properties even when the host rock is not magnetized. Most magnetic rocks in India and somalia are due to leaching not dykes.

And Becky you are invited to Kenya any time, this world is sooo small!

Elijah.

Thank you for that Eligah it has already helped explain some of my findings, one question for now is, as ive found the Stainton outcrop to have a stronger magnetic attraction would that possibly mean that this section cooled with a lot less impurities than the other outcrops ive tested?

All the best Heath.

Ps While conducting your research did you experement with magnets ie attatch magnets to different outcrops if so i would be very interested in your finding as of yet ive still not seen any images other than my own of magnets attached to outcrops of the Cleveland dyke nore the great Whinn sill in Teesdale,

There is a complete record of my findings at the link below, sorry it is a blog and i use it as a record for myself, and am conducting research on a few different fronts.


Historyofabeck.blogspot.com



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/22/2012 06:46PM by Heath Barnes.

George Creighton Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Heath
> Have you bothered to read Elijahs masters thesis (
> [etheses.dur.ac.uk]
> :CyT ) or are you only interested in promoting
> your own blog, please take the time to read this
> very constructive and detailed thesis.
>
> Regards george
>
Yes i have bothered George

Regards Heath

> edit
> Elijah thank you for a very informative thesis on
> the cleveland dyke, good luck in your future
> endevours!
> george

Elijah,

Many thanks for your time and well-considered answers. Perhaps Heath (and Rog) will take up your suggestion of doing scientific research on the apparent magnetic differences along the dyke. As for me - Kenya, some day!

Perhaps Heath also will follow Paul's advice, and submit his findings to a peer-reviewed journal. You do not have to be a professional geologist to submit research for publication. Begin by doing a literature search, and reading everything you can find about related research that has already been done on the dyke, and on similar dykes. Then, you might choose sampling sites along the dyke, describe the geologic environment at each point and take samples for thin sections. Using a standardized method of measuring magnetism, you must quantify your data, and do it in such a way that other researchers can repeat the measurements. (Videos of pink and silver magnets won't quite do it.) If you find statistically significant differences in magnetism between the sampling sites, then perhaps you will write up your abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion and references and submit the paper to a journal for critical review by experts in that area. In this way, you could make a real contribution to geology. A blog that consists of some facts, some guesses and some information cut and pasted from other people's work will not contribute in the same way.

Thanks again, Elijah. Best wishes, Becky

ELIJAH MWANDOE (2) Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi guys,
>
> Sorry, it took me some time to get back to you as
> I was in the field mapping other magnetic dykes in
> Voi, Kenya......Roger, thanks for mentioning your
> recent trip in Upper Teesdale, guess you walked
> right on my old footsteps! Bowlees Beck, High
> force... tough memories one winter in 2003! My
> nose almost peeled off as I had just come from
> Kenya!
>
> Back to magnetics; the nature of the dyke's
> magnetism is such that the source is the north
> west island of Mull. I could establish its
> reversed negative signature and that it is
> tertiary. This will be the same all through where
> the dyke is found be in in situ or transported.
> The only change will occur if lightning or
> magnetotelluric forces interact with the specimen.
> I also established that the depth to the bottom of
> the dyke is unknown (quite large!) This means that
> there possibly was a long narrow fault from north
> west to south east Britain that was occupied by
> the tholeeitic dolerite during the emplacement. Or
> the fracture was caused immediately after the Mull
> eruption.
>
> In the formation of the dyke, normally the
> material composition causes the alignment of the
> magnetic particles to conform with the current
> earth's magnetic field. That is how we manage to
> map the age and orientation. The strength of the
> magnetism (call it attraction to magnets!) will be
> a variation of intensity of ferromagnetic
> assemblages in the rock. However, since the source
> of the cleveland dyke is one then the intensity
> will be the same. The variance will occur where
> the host rock or impurities mix with the dolerite
> during formation to dilute the magnetic quality.
>
> Another indicator is that dykes are narrow long
> bodies and this enhances the magnetic property of
> polarity; north and south. The edges quickly
> become either polarity due to the dimension as
> compared to a tabular body like the Whin Sill or
> some dome.
>
> Coming to the behavior of bar magnets, it is not
> important whether the magnet is made from whatever
> material as long as it prohibits magnetism. The
> stronger the magnet, the more pronounced will be
> the attraction. The strange action of the compass
> needle or a magnet not responding to the dyke
> outcrop could be the result of neutralization by
> either lightning or Tellurics. It is not abnormal
> and I found several outcrops of the dyke like
> that- even weathering from polarized storms can
> affect magnetization. How do you demagnetize a
> permanent magnet? Just hit one pole with a similar
> pole of another magnet several times! It happens
> naturally.
>
> I hope I have answered most querries, but to
> answer the last one from Curry, you can write a
> thesis about the magnetic variation of the
> Cleveland dyke and research on the causes! I will
> collaborate and can make it to UK when necessary.
> The unique magnetic signature can also be used to
> fill the gaps where the dyke does not outcrop...
> is it lurking somewhere deep down or is it totally
> absent... all the way to the south east!!!
>
> Cheer guys!
>
> Elijah


Elijah when you refere to the unique magnetic signature what what exactly do you mean? Regards Heath.

Thanks for the advice on the reporting of my findings becky but please remember i work long hours and spend as much time as i can researching not just the magnetic Cleveland dyke but also move tons of aluvial deposits to get at small sections of the Stainton gravel beds, this i have to record at the moment as quickly as i can and also hope to attract help, i do this using my blog.

But again and i mean it! thanks for the advice on how to proffesionally report and any future advise will not only be welcome but also needed.

All the very best Heath ps i would still like to show you around the local outcrops maybee we could meet up and maybee Roger can join us?

Heath
Just a few comments from me before I quit this thread.

You stated that you have read Elijah`s thesis maybe yes maybe no but did you get the gist of how he obtain the magnetic readings from this area.

I do not think Elijah traced the magnetic properties by sticking iffy magnets to each rock and outcrop.

As I understand it I will quote a passage from the actual thesis ( if breach of copyright mods please delete ) :-

" 4.4.1 Data acquisition technique
The method I used involved two proton precession magnetometers (Geometries model-856); the base
magnetometer to measure diurnal variations and the other in roving mode. Appendix (I) gives full
details of the equipment used. Readings along a profile (across a probable or known strike) were taken
every twenty meters and the time also noted so as to reduce the values later by comparing them with
the base station record. All stations were repeated and recorded on paper three times to confirm the
values, and the final reading recorded in the magnetometer's memory. A GPS (Plate 2) was also carried
along to map the spatial position of each station as well as elevation. Lengths of profiles range from
300m to more than 2km, depending on the nature of anomalies encountered. Notes were also taken
corresponding to a particular station regarding; outcrops, metallic objects in the vicinity or power lines.
These were later analyzed during data processing. Data were entered into a PDA for latter processing."

Page 47

As said this is how I understand the magnetic measurement method, but stand to be corrected by the author of the thesis.

And last but not least:-

Heath why are you always on the defensive with members who are only trying to help and give sound advice to you with your project.

Good luck no more comments from me

You have totally lost me George ? are you refering to my simple question to Eligah that asks if he attatched magnets to the outcrops he studied?

Heath, magnets are for those of us who don't have magnetometers. Trying magnets, when you have a magnetometer, sounds a bit like a pilot sticking his hand out the cockpit window to guess the wind speed when he has instruments on board for that purpose.