Analyzing rock magnetic measurements: The RockMagAnalyzer 1.0 software

Abstract

The ROCKMAG ANALYZER is a software to determine rock magnetic parameters from a broad variety of rock magnetic measurements. This software was particularly designed to visualize and evaluate data from isothermal remanent magnetization acquisition, coercivity curves, hysteresis loops and/or thermomagnetic curves. Various standard and non-standard rock magnetic parameters are calculated from these curves, thus, accelerating and simplifying the quantitative analysis of the measured data. View options like plotting derivatives, para-/diamagnetic correction, etc. further enhance the data analysis. Procedures for smoothing and data fitting by mathematical functions are implemented. Isothermal remanent magnetization acquisition and coercivity curves can be fitted by log-Gaussian functions and hysteresis loops by hyperbolic basic functions. Curie temperature estimation from thermomagnetic curves is supported by two different automated approaches: a second derivative method and a extrapolation method. A number of additional diagrams provide composite plots of parameters obtained by different measurements, like the Day plot and the Henkel plot. The ROCKMAG ANALYZER was designed for the output file format of the Variable Field Translation Balance (MM VFTB). It also supports data from the PM VSM/AGFM. The ROCKMAG ANALYZER requires Win95/98/ME/2k/XP and is available at "http://www.geophysik.uni-muenchen.de/research/paleomagnetism/". © 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.