System and method for controlling undesired magnetic field effects in magnetic resonance imaging

A system and method are provided for determining a spatial distribution of susceptibility in a subject using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system. The method includes directing the MRI system to acquire imaging data from an imaging volume within a subject, wherein the imaging volume is subject to both background fields (BB) originating outside the imaging volume and local fields (BL) originating from tissue within the imaging volume. The method also includes selecting a size and non-central compute point for an extended Poisson kernel to be applied to the imaging data, subtracting from a delta function to control the background fields (BB) but not the local fields (BL), and producing a susceptibility report attributable to the local fields (BL).