AbstractBy using two components of anomalous magnetic fields and a formulation including complex numbers it is possible to calculate the position parameters of thick plates and both magnetization and position of thin plates directly from any two or three points of anomaly profiles. The formulae (interpretation operators) allow automatic topographic corrections to be made. The new two‐component operators give more reliable results than the conventional methods of interpretation. The variance of the parameter values obtained with subsequent points of an anomaly measures directly, the total error of interpretation.The application of infinite thin plate operators to a long profile results in characteristic patterns, from which the estimation of the number of plates and their approximate position is possibl