The anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility in biotite, muscovite and chlorite single crystals

The anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS) of single crystals of biotite, muscovite and chlorite has been measured in order to provide accurate values of the magnetic anisotropy properties for these common rock-forming minerals. The low-field AMS and the high-field paramagnetic susceptibility are defined. For the high-field values, it is necessary to combine the paramagnetic deviatoric tensor obtained from the high-field torque magnetometer with the paramagnetic bulk susceptibility measured from magnetization curves of the crystals. This leads to the full paramagnetic susceptibility ellipsoid due to the anisotropic distribution of iron cations in the silicate lattice. The ellipsoid of paramagnetic susceptibility, which was obtained for the three phyllosilicates, is highly oblate in shape and the minimum susceptibility direction is subparallel to the crystallographic c-axes. The anisotropy of the susceptibility within the basal plane of the biotite has been evaluated and found to be isotropic within the accuracy of the instrumental measurements. The degree of anisotropy of biotite and chlorite is compatible with previously reported values while for muscovite is smaller than previously published values. The shape of the chlorite AMS ellipsoid for all the samples is near-perfect oblate in contrast with a wide distribution of oblate and prolate values reported in earlier studies. Reliable values are important for deriving models of the magnetic anisotropy where it reflects mineral fabrics and deformation of rocks. (C) 2003 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.