A new software for the measurement of magnetic moments using a SQUID magnetometer

A new software package called CryoMag to carry out measurements of magnetic moments is presented. It is designed to work with SQUID magnetometers manufactured by 2G Enterprises, but the modular design allows easy adaption to other instruments like spinner magnetometers as well. The measurement process is optimized for, but not limited to, stepwise demagnetization experiments commonly used in paleomagnetism. A graphical representation of the data is always visible to the user in the form of orthogonal, stereographic and decay plots, which can be represented in in-situ, geographic or tilt corrected coordinates and can be saved to graphics files. Measurement positions can be easily customized. A comprehensive record of detailed measurement and statistical data is stored in XML (eXtensible Markup Language) based data files (*.cmag.xml). The final results of the measurements can be exported to various common file formats for further processing. The software is written in Python, an open source, cross-platform programming language and can therefore be used on all major operating systems like Windows, Linux and MacOS X (not tested).