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On the estimation of the true mean inclinations when declinations are unknown
Author(s) -
Westphal Michel,
Gurevitch Evgueni L.,
Pozzi Jean Pierre
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/98gl01137
Subject(s) - declination , statistics , mean value , mathematics , mean squared error , value (mathematics) , estimation , standard deviation , geodesy , magnetic declination , geology , physics , astrophysics , earth's magnetic field , management , economics , quantum mechanics , magnetic field
Paleomagnetists dealing with deep drill samples cannot use the classical Fisher statistics when they don't know the declinations of the magnetization of their samples. The arithmetical mean of the inclinations gives a strongly biased estimation of the true mean inclination when these inclinations are steep and scattered. By fitting cumulative distribution curves, we show that we can obtain an unbiased (or at least less biased) estimation of the true mean inclination and of the k value. The method is tested on artificial and real cases.