Company History

APPLIED PALEOMAGNETICS, INC. is the world's first and most experienced service company dedicated to commercial applications of paleomagnetism. Incorporated in 1986, Applied Paleomagnetics represents a consolidation of the paleomagnetics programs previously offered by Woodward-Clyde Consultants, Sierra Geophysics, and Z-Axis Exploration. Our project files document a continuous history of commercial paleomagnetic experience and service since 1974.

Applied Paleomagnetics, Inc. is privately owned and managed by its founders, Dr. David R. Van Alstine at our Seattle area office, and Joseph E. Butterworth at our San Francisco area office.

Applied Paleomagnetics is widely recognized as the world leader in paleomagnetic core-orientation technology, which we pioneered beginning in 1980. Since then, we have paleomagnetically oriented 20,000 feet of cores from around the world, with proven accuracy when tested against multishot and borehole image logs. Our success rate exceeds 90% when paleomagnetically orienting cores from lithologies as diverse as North Sea and Austin chalk; carbonates from Western Canada, Venezuela, the Middle East, and Alaska; and sandstones from the western United States, Texas, the North Sea, Venezuela, Africa, Southeast Asia, and western Australia.

Our paleomagnetic laboratory, which is located in Santa Cruz, California, is fully equipped with a computerized, three-axis superconducting (SQUID) magnetometer; magnetically shielded room; alternating-field, thermal, and chemical demagnetization facilities; and magnetic susceptibility and IRM/hysteresis instrumentation. Our cryogenic magnetometer, one of the most sensitive in the world, is fine-tuned for measuring the very weak magnetism recorded in petroleum and coalbed methane reservoir rocks.