Magnetic identification of selected natural iron oxides and sulphides

Measurements of initial susceptibility, remanent magnetisations and hysteresis loops have been carried out at room temperature on a range of characterised iron oxides and sulphides in order to attempt qualitative identification of the individual minerals. The minerals studied were magnetite, titanomagnetite, haematite, pyrrhotite and greigite. It was found to be possible to qualitatively identify ail the minerals (except titanomagnetites from magnetites) from each other using simple susceptibility and remanence ratios. Using discriminant analysis on both the remanence and hysteresis loop data, it was found to be possible to also distinguish the titanomagnetites from the magnetites purely on the basis of the room-temperature measurements. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.