I am very pleased that my book The Geomagnetic Field and Life is being published in English in the United States. Thanks to the initiative of Plenum Press, a publishing hause that is widely known in all countries, I have a great new opportunity to make direct contact with friends throughout the world. My book on the geomagnetic field can be regarded as an abstraction, whose purpose is to provide a better picture and understanding of the world araund us, its main driving forces, and factors, to help us to know ourselves, and to proceed further. The essence of the abstraction is that in treating the problern I have deliberately ignored the diverse effects of various extemal factors on living organisms and have confined myself to an analysis of the effect of the GMF. This approach allows me to go one step further-to draw various conclusions and propose theories that rnight bring us closer to a proper understanding of the true nature of the phenomena. Philosophers have long been aware that by such abstract thinking we can deterrnine the nature of phenomena more reliably, completely, and comprehensively, penetrate to the very core of the observed effects, and perceive the depth of their interrelations.

This book addresses and reviews many of the still little understood questions related to the processes underlying planetary magnetic fields and their interaction with the solar wind. With focus on research carried out within the German Priority Program ”PlanetMag”, it also provides an overview of the most recent research in the field. Magnetic fields play an important role in making a planet habitable by protecting the environment from the solar wind. Without the geomagnetic field, for example, life on Earth as we know it would not be possible. And results from recent space missions to Mars and Venus strongly indicate that planetary magnetic fields play a vital role in preventing atmospheric erosion by the solar wind. However, very little is known about the underlying interaction between the solar wind and a planet’s magnetic field. The book takes a synergistic interdisciplinary approach that combines newly developed tools for data acquisition and analysis, computer simulations of planetary interiors and dynamos, models of solar wind interaction, measurement of ancient terrestrial rocks and meteorites, and laboratory investigations.

An interdisciplinary review of research in geomagnetism, aeronomy and space weather, written by eminent researchers from these fields.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the reader to the active sun as a source of disturbance that affect the magnetic field measured at the earth's surface. Included under this topic are the general sun's properties, solar surface activity centers and characteristics of the solar field and ejecta flowing into interplanetary space.

The mystery of how migrating animals find their way over unfamiliar terrain has intrigued people for centuries, and has been the focus of productive research in the biological sci ences for several decades. Whether or not the earth's magnetic field had anything to do with their navigational abilities has sufaced and been dismissed several times, beginning at least in the mid to late 1800s. This topic generally remained out of the mainstream of scientific research for two reasons: (1) The apparent irreproducibility of many of the be havioral experiments which were supposed to demonstrate the existence of the magnetic sense; and (2) Perceived theoretical difficulties which were encountered when biophysi cists tried to understand how such a sensory system might operate. However, during the mid to late 1960s as the science of ethology (animal behavior) grew, it became clear from studies on bees and birds that the geomagnetic field is used under a variety of conditions. As more and more organisms were found to have similar abilities, the problem shifted back to the question as to the basis of this perception. Of the various schemes for trans ducing the geomagnetic field to the nervous system which have been proposed, the hy pothesis of magnetite-based magnetoreception discussed at length in this volume has per haps the best potential for explaining a wide range of these effects, even though this link is as yet clear only in the case of magnetotactic bacteria.

"This book by Lisa Tauxe and others is a marvelous tool for education and research in Paleomagnetism. Many students in the U.S. and around the world will welcome this publication, which was previously only available via the Internet. Professor Tauxe has performed a service for teaching and research that is utterly unique."—Neil D. Opdyke, University of Florida

This survey summarizes what is known about the magnetic field of the earth, based on information available through 1971. Observed phenomena are described and interpreted in terms of the most widely accepted physical explanations. An overview of the geomagnetic field and its dynamic relationship with its terrestrial and interplanetary environment is first presented as briefly as possible, followed by more detailed descriptions of geomagnetic measurements and experimental methods, precise current models and past behavior of the main field, regular variations in the field resulting from the motion of the earth, disturbance variations of the field produced by interplanetary environment, and dynamic processes occurring in the outer magnetosphere. Extensive references is a replacement for Chapter 11 of Handbook of Geophysics and Space Environment (Shea L. Valley, ed.), Air Force Cambridge Research Laboratories and McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, 1965.