Magnetic properties of iron-rich oxisols

Four occurrences of highly magnetic soil in Brazil have been analysed with a view to identifying the magnetic minerals and quantifying the soil magnetization. Techniques used include X-ray diffraction, X-ray fluorescence and Mössbauer spectroscopy. This approach leads us to identify several ways that these soils, which have spontaneous magnetization in the range 1_s<35 j/t/kg,="" can="" come="">One soil, which forms on dolerite (19.6 wt% Fe₂O₃), is found to contain fully-oxidized titanomaghemite inherited from the parent rock. This oxide has a canted ferrimagnetic spin structure with _s=36 J/T/kg of sample. The three others, formed on very iron-rich rock (50–90 wt% Fe₂O₃), contain magnetite or maghemite as the magnetic species and in two cases the soil is more magnetic than the parent rock (largely composed of pure hematite).