Investigating anomalous behaviour of Earth’s magnetic field in the middle Paleozoic

There is a notable scarcity of high-quality paleomagnetic data for the middle Paleozoic era, ~440-340 million years ago (Silurian – late Carboniferous). This gap in knowledge hinders our understanding of Earth's magnetic field behaviour during a crucial period of Earth's evolution. It also limits the use of paleomagnetism for dating and correlation purposes. During this time, life on land emerged, the first plants and forests developed, and numerous biotic crises occurred, but our understanding of drivers of these evolutionary changes is hampered by poorly constrained paleogeographic reconstructions. Common issues in middle Paleozoic paleomagnetism are findings of (very) weak magnetisations and pervasive overprinting. This makes accurate measurements challenging with standard techniques. I hypothesise that the scarcity of data is a result of a significant natural process that is not yet fully understood, rather than a lack of dedicated research effort. New high-precision techniques, like the Quantum Diamond Microscope, offer promising avenues for investigating this phenomenon. I will present the first results of the PANDA project, which investigates promising sedimentary and igneous rocks from the late Silurian to early Carboniferous with new high precision techniques. Particularly, I will focus on surprising new results from the Middle Devonian and Late Carboniferous, and the new questions that these results bring up.