The A.R.M. correction method of paleointensity determination

A new method has been developed for recovering paleointensities from igneous rocks which requires only a single heating to the Curie temperature, utilizing partial ARM acquisition measurements before and after the heating to carefully separate distortions of the coercivity spectrum, caused by the heating, from viscous components present in the natural remanence. In addition, the changes in the partial ARM curves may be used to correct to some extent for chemical alterations that occur during the heating. As a result, the method allows one to use a number of samples for paleointensities that would normally be rejected by the Thellier-Thellier method, especially those contaminated by strong viscous overprints. The key to this process is the high sensitivity to changes in the TRM and ARM acquisition spectrum (and hence the coercivity spectrum) of partial ARM acquisition curves, which may be obtained at room temperature.Paleointensity results from recent historic Hawaiian lava flows have demonstrated the reliability of the ARM correction method.