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Remanent Magnetism

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Encyclopedia of Solid Earth Geophysics

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series ((EESS))

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Definition

Remanent magnetization :

Permanent magnetization held in rocks and other earth materials, commonly, though not always, dating from cooling to below the Curie temperature (Tc) or Néel temperature (Tn) of the magnetic minerals in the rock, or the time of formation of the rock unit.

Introduction

The fact that earth materials, particularly rocks, possess a permanent magnetization has been known for some time. Early observations of rocks producing large anomalies were commonly ascribed to lightning strikes. By the mid-nineteenth century remanence was accepted as a property of some rocks, and by the early twentieth century crude measurements of the direction of magnetization were possible. During the second half of the twentieth century, the measurement of remanent magnetization (RM) became a well-established research field (see entries under “Paleomagnetism, Principles”). RM is a vector quantity, having both direction, usually related to the direction of the Earth’s field at the...

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Geosciences, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA

    Laurie Brown

  2. Norwegian Geological Survey, Trondheim, Norway

    Suzanne McEnroe

Authors
  1. Laurie Brown
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  2. Suzanne McEnroe
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Laurie Brown .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Seismology, National Geophysical Research Insti, Hyderabad, India

    Harsh K. Gupta

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Brown, L., McEnroe, S. (2020). Remanent Magnetism. In: Gupta, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Solid Earth Geophysics. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10475-7_126-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-10475-7_126-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-10475-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-10475-7

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