Abstract
Our understanding of the past behavior of the geomagnetic field arises
from magnetic signals stored in geological materials, e.g. (volcanic)
rocks. Bulk rock samples, however, often contain magnetic grains that
differ in chemistry, size and shape; some of them record the Earth’s
magnetic field well, others are unreliable. The presence of a small
amount of adverse behaved magnetic grains in a sample may already
obscure important information on the past state of the geomagnetic
field. Recently it was shown that it is possible to determine
magnetizations of individual grains in a sample by combining X-ray
computed tomography and magnetic surface scanning measurements. Here we
establish this new Micromagnetic Tomography (MMT) technique and make it
suitable for use with different magnetic scanning techniques, and for
both synthetic and natural samples. We acquired reliable magnetic
directions by selecting subsets of grains in a synthetic sample, and we
obtained rock-magnetic information of individual grains in a volcanic
sample. This illustrates that MMT opens up entirely new venues of
paleomagnetic and rock-magnetic research. MMT’s unique ability to
determine the magnetization of individual grains in a nondestructive way
allows for a systematic analysis of how geological materials record and
retain information on the past state of the Earth’s magnetic field.
Moreover, by interpreting only the contributions of known magnetically
well-behaved grains in a sample MMT has the potential to unlock
paleomagnetic information from even the most complex, crucial, or
valuable recorders that current methods are unable to recover.