The ability of a laser magnetometer to measure the natural remanent magnetization of rocks is experimentally investigated. It is shown that the performance of such a magnetometer permits the rapid measurement of rock magnetizations of less than1 A m−1in a laboratory without the need of any magnetic shielding or cryogenic facilities. Moreover, the laser magnetometer is experimentally shown to be able to measure the distribution of magnetization in spatially inhomogeneous samples. ©1997 American Institute of Physics.