In my studies of pre-Illinoian glacial deposits in Indiana it would be very useful to easily differentiate glacial materials with Bruhes normal and Matuyama reversed polarity. It is my understanding that Schlumberger's Susceptibility Measurement Tool (SUMT) is currently used in petroleum exploration (https://petrowiki.org/Downhole_magnetic_surveys). Is anyone aware of it's use in glacial studies?
No idea if somebody tried.
I will say that is really difficult:
For glacial deposits, you have coarse, clastic material; hence it will not show well-defined remnant magnetism.
The remnant magnetism works well for lake or sea sediments, where the small magnetic particles align with the Earth's field while sedimenting.
In glacial deposits, the material is set there mechanically, and doesn't manage to align with the magnetic field.
Furthermore, I will say that the Schlumberger tool works only in quite favourable conditions; geologists struggle to get remnant magnetization even from samples in the lab.
Anyway may work! Specially if you have iron-based intergranular precipitates! Ask Schlumberger!
Tusen takk, Giorgio Pattarini! The glacial literature I'm familiar with in the Midwest that has included measurements of remanant magnetism with reverse polarity has been on loess and glacio-lacustrine sediments. In the geographic area I'm interested in (Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky) thick loess sequences are absent, but deeply buried glacio-lacustrine deposits can be found, but are not common. What it may boil down to is whether the cost of the Schlumberger logger is worth the rare times when it might yield useful data. And certainly contacting Schlumberger directly makes sense. I was waiting until I had a better sense of the questions to ask.
