A New Correction Method for Ship's Viscous Magnetization Effect on Shipboard Three-component Magnetic Data Using a Total Field Magnetometer

Marine magnetic surveys provide a rapid and cost-effective method for pioneer geophysical survey for many purposes. Sea-surface magnetometers offer high accuracy but are limited to measuring the scalar total magnetic field and require dedicated cruise missions. Shipboard three- component magnetometers, on the other hand, can collect vector three components and applicable to any cruise missions. However, correcting for the ship's magnetic field, particularly viscous magnetization, still remains a challenge. This study proposes a new additional correction method for ship's viscous magnetization effect in vector data acquired by shipboard three-component magnetometer. This method utilizes magnetic data collected simultaneously with a sea-surface magnetometer providing total magnetic field measurements. Our method significantly reduces deviations between the two datasets, resulting in corrected vector anomalies with errors as low as 7-25 nT. These tiny errors are possibly caused by the vector magnetic anomaly and its related viscous magnetization. This method is expected to significantly improve the accuracy of shipborne magnetic surveys by providing corrected vector components. This will enhance magnetic interpretations and might be useful for understanding plate tectonics, geological structures, hydrothermal deposits, and more.