Atarita, and 6 co-authors, reported in draft during 2019 that anisotropy of magnetic susceptibility (AMS) has been used in various studies related to interpreting the direction of lava flow, some of which have shown ambiguity with regard to the data generated.
In this study, the authors explored an alternative option to support the aforementioned applications, using lava flow-type igneous rock samples from the Ijen Volcanic Complex, East Java, Indonesia. They have investigated the preferred rock pore orientations from micro-computed tomography (μCT) images and quantified their directions. They then calculated their correlation with AMS data by calculating the angle between preferred pore orientation. The axis with the smallest gap to the preferred pore orientation of each sample was assumed to imply lava flow direction. Different lava flow direction preferences were obtained from different magnetic ellipsoids. Another important factor for consideration is the relative vertical position of the sampling site within a single lava flow unit.
Only one out of five samples (ANY2) show good quantitative conformity between AMS data, preferred pore orientation, and topographical slope, despite these limitations. The authors results point to a direction that seems to be correct and coherent on a physical basis. Additional research would likely clarify the issues involved. This encouraged the authors to explore and work further in this field of research.
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