Abstract The magnetic anomaly map of North America and its related data set provide the opportunity not only to view the obvious short-wavelength anomalies (<300 km) in a continental context, but to isolate and analyze the longer wavelength anomalies. However, care must be used in analyzing the longer wavelengths because of the effects of noncrustal sources on these anomalies. Inversion of the anomalies into lateral variations of crustal magnetization suggests that the long-wavelength anomalies (>2600 km) are strongly affected by core field components that have not been completely removed from the North American data set. Furthermore, the piecewise matching of the magnetic anomalies of adjacent survey areas in the map compilation has contaminated the intermediate wavelength anomalies (300-2600 km).