Selection Method to Identify the Dominant Elements that Contribute to Magnetic Susceptibility in Sediment
Bambang Heru Iswanto* and Siti Zulaikah**
*Department of Physics, Universitas Negeri Jakarta, Jakarta 13220, Indonesia
**Department of Physics, Universitas Negeri Malang, Malang, Indonesia
Abstract
Measurements of the magnetic susceptibility and chemical elements have been carried out on soils or sediments in various depositional environments for various purposes. Theoretically, the magnetic mineral content in nature is generally ferromagnetic which is characterized by the presence of an element of Fe and is positively correlated with the value of magnetic susceptibility. However, the presence of measured elements does not always have a positive correlation with magnetic susceptibility or very low. In this study, we propose a method to find out the magnetic factor that correlates significantly with magnetic susceptibility. The method consists of several steps: (i) a correlation analysis between magnetic susceptibility and each measured element is carried out; (ii) the elements that have a positive correlation are chosen as dominant elements; (iii) determine the magnetic factor as aggregation of the dominant elements. The method has been tested for various depositional environments and successfully found the magnetic factor of dominant elements with a very significant correlation value. The discovery of dominant elements that contributes to magnetic susceptibility will facilitate the determination of the minerals carrying magnetic properties and can be used as an indicator of environmental conditions.
Keywords: magnetic susceptibility, chemical elements, selection method, sediment
Topic: Physics