Total and CEA have conceived and developed two new logging tools which allow continuous, precise, and accurate in-situ magnetic measurements within weakly magnetized sedimentary rocks encountered in uncased industry drilled wells. The combination of these magnetic measurements permits for the first time continuous determination of natural remanent magnetization (NRM) polarities occurring in the logged section. The resulting well magnetostratigraphic sequence (WMS) which may be recognized from well to well (magnetostratigraphic correlations), may also be correlative to a geomagnetic polarity time scale (GPTS) or reference magneto-stratigraphic scale (RMS), given adequate dating tie points and lack of noticeable remagnetizations.

Application of this method to the Upper Jurassic formation in four wells of the Paris basin has yielded promising results for both stratigraphic and near absolute age correlations as well as determination of facies diachronisms. The comparison of results obtained from magnetic measurements and from sequence stratigraphy analysis shows that third-order sequence boundaries may be correlative to geomagnetic reversals, but may also be diachronous in wells 80 km or less apart.

The potential of borehole magnetic measurements as presented in this paper is still under investigation. However, these encouraging initial results show that this new investigating and dating method could be of great help in the analysis of subsurface stratigraphy by extending the concepts of magnetostratigraphy from the outcrops and laboratory directly into borehole logging.