Identifying remanent magnetization effects in magnetic data

Abstract

Remanent magnetization can have a significant influence on the shape of magnetic anomalies in areas that are generally characterized by induced magnetization. Since modeling of magnetic anomalies is nonunique, additional constraints on the direction of magnetization are useful. A method is proposed here to study the possible contribution of remanent magnetization to a particular anomaly, by comparing two functions that are calculated directly from the observations: (1) the amplitude of the analytic signal, and (2) the horizontal gradient of pseudogravity. From the amplitude and relative position of maxima in these derived quantities, we infer the deviation of the magnetization direction from that of the ambient field. The approach is applied to the magnetic anomaly in the center of the Manicouagan impact structure (Canada). Our results, based only on the magnetic anomaly observations, are in close agreement with constraints on the direction of remanent magnetization from rock samples.