Feasibility of applying viscous remanent magnetization (VRM) orientation in the study of palaeowind direction by loess magnetic fabric

Abstract

AbstractThe loess formation sampling method on the Chinese Loess Plateau generally involves the acquisition of samples from the basset section and the drilling core. Constraints imposed by the precision of the drilling machine operation make it difficult to determine the orientation of the samples due to the rotation of the core.Although researchers have proposed solutions for reconstructing the north direction of the samples by adopting the viscous remanent magnetization (VRM) orientation, it remains uncertain whether this approach can be adopted in studies that use the magnetic fabric to trace the palaeomonsoonal direction, and the degree to which this approach will change the magnetic fabric results.Based on the achievements of other researchers, we adopted the VRM orientation of the basset section samples oriented in the field. By determining how the VRM orientation changes the magnetic fabric of loess over different demagnetization temperature ranges, we can draw the preliminary conclusion that there is no significant difference between the magnetic fabric information of the loess obtained at 100–150°C VRM orientation and that obtained from the field orientation (the statistical bin size is 22.5°, significance level α = 0.05). This indicates that the VRM orientation approach is feasible for studying non-oriented drilling core samples to determine the prevailing surface paleowind direction with appropriate precision.