Geomagnetic secular variation in Sicily and revised ages of historic lavas from Mount Etna

The variation of geomagnetic field direction in Sicily during the past 700 yr has tentatively been determined using lavas of known date from Mount Etna 1 . Additional palaeomagnetic studies on several hundred volcanic samples, combined with archaeomagnetic investigations carried out on Norman buildings, have improved the previous results and permit a reconstruction of the geomagnetic variation curve to about AD 1000. This curve agrees well with those obtained for other European countries 2–6 and may be used as a reference for checking the ages attributed to archaeological structures as well as volcanic products in southern Italy during the past 1,000 yr. The present results cast serious doubts on the true ages of numerous historically dated lavas from Mount Etna, most of which are at least several centuries older than previously believed. The conclusions have implications for the succession of eruptions, effusion rates, magmatic evolution, and so on, and demonstrate the inconsistency of eruptive models based on historical records alone.