| Tackling Diverse Microscale Problems in the Geosciences with Quantum Diamond Microscopy
EMRP3
Tackling Diverse Microscale Problems in the Geosciences with Quantum Diamond Microscopy
Convener: Ualisson BellonECSECS | Co-conveners: Rosa de BoerECSECS, Roger Fu

Quantum Diamond Microscopy (QDM) is emerging as a powerful tool in palaeomagnetism and rock magnetism. Much of the excitement surrounding the technique stems from its ability to resolve individual magnetic anomalies at the microscale, allowing the direction and intensity of magnetic remanence to be investigated at the level of individual magnetic carriers. Combined with chemical, mineralogical, and imaging techniques, QDM provides a level of spatial control that is difficult to achieve using conventional bulk palaeomagnetic methods. Yet QDM is not simply a palaeomagnetic tool. It is a broadly applicable geoscientific microscope for investigating processes recorded by magnetic minerals. Rocks form, deform, and undergo alteration through a wide range of geological processes, and their remanence carriers can preserve spatially resolved signatures of these events. In volcanic rocks, for example, magnetic inclusions within feldspar phenocrysts may define fabrics that record magma flow and emplacement. In sedimentary or altered rocks, fluid circulation may trigger the crystallisation of new magnetic minerals, allowing remanence directions within microveins or reaction zones to be compared directly with those of the surrounding matrix. At still smaller scales, QDM can be used to investigate magnetic particles biosynthesised by microorganisms, providing insight into (e.g.) how magnetosome arrangements and magnetic interactions contribute to magnetotaxis. As QDM becomes increasingly accessible across geosciences, a key challenge is identifying the scientific questions for which this technique can provide unique insights, and developing an understanding of its methodological challenges, limitations, and best practices as the community gains experience with QDM. This session aims to bring together not only palaeomagnetists, but geoscientists from a broad range of disciplines who use or would like to use QDM to address spatially localised scientific questions. By showcasing applications across geological, geochemical, biological, and planetary materials, we seek to demonstrate how microscale magnetic imaging can reveal processes that are obscured in bulk measurements and to inspire new ways of using QDM to tackle geoscientific problems.