The natural remanent magnetization (NRM) of three Apollo 11 lunar materials, i. e. a crystalline rock and two kinds of microbreccia, is examined in detail with special attention to the possible effect of viscous magnetization acquirable in the terrestrial magnetic field.
The intensity of stable NRM (
In), the critical AC-demagnetization field (
H*) which represents the upper limit for keeping approximate invariance of NRM direction, and the effective demagnetization field (
H0) which reduces the intesity of NRM to (1/
e) of the initial value are determined as follows; (a)
In=8.9×10
-6emu/gm,
H*=30Oe,
H0=25Oe for a crystalline rock (NASA No. 10024.22): (b)
In=1.50×10
-5emu/gm,
H*=40Oe,
H0=35Oe for a weakly impacted microbreccia (No. 10021.32): (c)
In=1.50×10
-4emu/gm
H*>500Oe,
H0≅1400Oe for a strongly impacted microbreccia (No. 10085·16).
The intense and extremely stable NRM of the strongly impacted lunar microbreccia may suggest that a strong impact of lunar materials can cause an acquisition of a particularly stable remanent magnetization even in a very weak magnetic field.
A certain portion of metallic irons in the lunar materials are very fine particles of several hundreds of Ångström in mean diameter. These particles behave almost superpara-magnetically. Saturated viscous remanent magnetization acquired in the geomagnetic field being denoted by
ΔIv, the ratio of 44 to the stable remanence
In is determined to be 0.015, 8.4 and 0.23 respectively in cases of (a), (b) and (c).
The larger value of the ratio
ΔIv/
In indicates that the larger portion of fine particles of metallic irons. The relaxation time of the viscous magnetization at 20°C ranges from 2×10 to 7×10
4sec., which implies that the grain size of the find iron particles is 170-180Å in diameter.
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