Measuring, processing, and analyzing hysteresis data

Magnetic hysteresis loops are an important tool in theoretical and applied rock magnetism with applications to paleointensities, paleoenvironmental analysis, and tectonic studies, among many others. Hence, information derived from these data is amongst the most ubiquitous rock magnetic data used by the Earth science community. Despite their prevalence, there are no general guidelines to aid scientists in obtaining the best possible data and no widely available software to allow the efficient analysis of hysteresis loop data using the most advanced and appropriate methods. Here we provide an outline of detrimental factors and simple approaches to measuring better hysteresis loops as well as introducing a new MATLAB software package called Hysteresis Loop analysis box (HystLab) for processing and analyzing loop data. This graphical user interface software is capable of reading the wide range of data formats that are generated by the multiple types of equipment typically used to measure hysteresis loops. Hys...