Remanent Magnetization in the Proterozoic Basement Rocks of Iraq: the Southern Desert in Focus

Abstract

Utilizing aeromagnetic data, this research examines basement rocks in Iraq, focusing on the southwestern part, known as the Southern Desert. The basement has particular importance since it is deep and has not been discovered directly yet. The purpose of this study is to outline regions of remanent magnetization, which have lithological, structural, and tectonic implementations using a recently proposed method by Smith et al. (2022) that transforms the magnetic data to the pole and vertical dip and subsequently estimates the apparent magnetic susceptibility. The results show the presence of remanent magnetization in the basement with different shapes and spatial extensions that predominately aligns in northwest-southeast and north-south directions in accordance with basement inherited weak zones. Further, these occurrences lie in particular tectonic zones and sub-zones. The results in the Southern Desert are consistent with a previous study that used two-dimensional forward modeling and mentioned remanent magnetization in two north-south-trending zones. Concerning the origin of the reversely magnetized bodies in Iraq, their distribution may suggest either faulting in a basement terrane (of reverse magnetization) with different displacement or intrusions of basic rocks within structural basins that are resulting from extensional tectonics.