The study of magnetism in rocks, which provides information on variations in the direction and intensity of the earth’s magnetic field with time. During the formation of an igneous or sedimentary rock containing magnetic minerals the polarity of the earth’s magnetic field at that time becomes ‘frozen’ into the rock. Studies of this fossil magnetism in samples of rocks have enabled the former positions of magnetic poles at various geological times to be located. It has also revealed that periodic reversals in the geomagnetic field have taken place (i.e. the N-pole becomes the S-pole and vice versa). This information has been important in plate tectonics in establishing the movements of lithospheric plates over the earth’s surface. The magnetic reversals provided crucial evidence for the sea-floor spreading hypothesis proposed in the early 1960s.