The past two decades have witnessed a revolution in the earth sciences. The quantitative, instrument-based measurements and physical models of. geophysics, together with advances in technology, have radically transformed the way in which the Earth, and especially its crust, is described. The study of the magnetism of the rocks of the Earth's crust has played a major part in this transformation. Rocks, or more specifically their constituent magnetic minerals, can be regarded as a measuring instrument provided by nature, which can be employed in the service of the earth sciences. Thus magnetic minerals are a recording magnetometer; a goniometer or protractor, recording the directions of flows, fields and forces; a clock; a recording thermometer; a position recorder; astrain gauge; an instrument for geo logical surveying; a tracer in climatology and hydrology; a tool in petrology. No instrument is linear, or free from noise and systematic errors, and the performance of nature's instrument must be assessed and certified. This has been the task of the research worker in rock and mineral magnetism."

On the 6th, 7th' and 8th April 1983, a conference entitled "Magnetism, planetary rotation and convection in the Solar System" was held in the School of Physics at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. The purpose of the meeting was to celebrate the 60th birthday of Prof. Stanley Keith Runcorn and his, and his students' and associates', several decades of scientific achievement. The social programme, which consisted of excursions in Northumberland and Durham with visits to ancient castles and churches, to Hexham Abbey and Durham Cathedral, and dinners in Newcastle and Durham, was greatly enjoyed by those attending the meeting and by their guests. The success ofthe scientific programme can be judged by this special edition of Geophysical Surveys which is derived mainly from the papers given at the meeting. The story starts in the late 1940s when the question of the origin of the magnetic field of the Earth and such other heavenly bodies as had at that time been discovered as having a magnetic field, was exercising the minds of several scientists; notably P. M. S. Blackett at Manchester, W. M. Elsasser at the University of Pennsylvania and E. C. Bullard at Cambridge. Two alternative mechanisms were proposed. In one the magnetic field was in some way connected with the distributed angular momentum of a rotating body; in the other, electric currents in conducting parts within the body were proposed as the source of magnetic field.