Abstract
First-order reversal curve (FORC) diagrams are a standard rock magnetic
tool for analyzing bulk magnetic hysteresis behaviors, which are used to
estimate the magnetic mineralogies and magnetic domain states of grains
within natural materials. However, the interpretation of FORC
distributions is challenging due to complex domain-state responses,
which introduce well-documented uncertainties and subjectivity. Here, we
propose a neural network algorithm (FORCINN) to invert the size and
aspect ratio distribution from measured FORC data. We trained and tested
the FORCINN model using a dataset of synthetic numerical FORCs for
single magnetite grains with various grain-sizes (45-400 nm) and aspect
ratios (oblate and prolate grains). In addition to successfully testing
FORCINN against synthetic datasets, we also tested FORCINN against FORC
data measured on natural samples with accurately determined grain-size
and aspect ratio distributions. FORCINN was found to provide good
estimates of the grain-size distributions for basalt samples and marine
sediments.