An analytical solution for correcting palaeomagnetic inclination error

Abstract

With increasing evidence showing significant inclination shallowing in red beds, it is important to develop useful tools to detecting and correcting inclination errors for haematite-bearing sedimentary rocks. Theoretically, any deviation of magnetization from the ambient magnetic field can be described by a preferred orientation distribution (OD) of unique axes of the anisotropic magnetic particles. Based on Stephenson's continuous particle OD function, magnetic anisotropy parameters of a bulk sample and inclination-correction equations were derived considering all the magnetic particles in a sample. In addition to our new equations for correcting red bed inclination error, the results also confirm the inlcination correction of Jackson et al. for magnetite-bearing samples, which is based on a simple, discrete-particle OD model used by Stephenson et al. to show their derivations, suggesting that the inclination correction is probably independent of the particle OD models.