mapping long term changes in earth s magnetic field earth9s geomagnetic field is of crucial importance for life because it protects our planet from cosmic rays yet in the course of earth history the field has undergone substantial changes in both its direction and strength in their perspective johnson et al chart recent advances in reconstructing maps of earth9s past magnetic field on time scales of millions of years the results raise important questions about interactions among core and mantle dynamics earth9s orbit rotation and magnetic field environment

age dating and the orbital theory of the ice ages development of a high resolution 0 to 300 000 year chronostratigraphy using the concept of orbital tuning a continuous high resolution deep sea chronostratigraphy has been developed spanning the last 300 000 yr the chronology is developed using a stacked oxygen isotope stratigraphy and four different orbital tuning approaches each of which is based upon a different assumption concerning the response of the orbital signal recorded in the data each approach yields a separate chronology the error measured by the standard deviation about the average of these four results which represents the best chronology has an average magnitude of only 2500 yr this small value indicates that the chronology produced is insensitive to the specific orbital tuning technique used excellent convergence between chronologies developed using each of five different paleoclimatological indicators from a single core is also obtained the resultant chronology is also insensitive to the specific indicator used the error associated with each tuning approach is estimated independently and propagated through to the average result the resulting error estimate is independent of that associated with the degree of convergence and has an average magnitude of 3500 yr in excellent agreement with the 2500 yr estimate transfer of the final chronology to the stacked record leads to an estimated error of 1500 yr thus the final chronology has an average error of 5000 yr

sedimentary records of relative paleointensity of the geomagnetic field theory and practice sediments have proved irresistible targets for attempts at determining the relative variations in the earth s magnetic field because of the possibility of long and continuous sequences that are well dated and have a reasonable global distribution the assumption underlying paleointensity studies using sedimentary sequences is that sediments retain a record reflecting the strength of the magnetic field when they were deposited early theoretical work suggested that because the time required for an assemblage of magnetic particles in water to come into equilibrium with the ambient magnetic field was quite short no dependence on magnetic field was expected nonetheless a number of experiments showed that sedimentary magnetizations varied in accordance with the field albeit not always in a simple linear fashion experiments in which the sediments were stirred in the presence of a field to simulate bioturbation showed a reasonably linear relationship with the applied field and these results spurred the hope that variations in the earth s magnetic field might indeed be recoverable from appropriate sedimentary sequences examination of existing paleointensity data sets allows a few general conclusions to be drawn it appears that sedimentary sequences can and do provide a great deal of information about the variations in relative paleointensity of the earth s magnetic field the dynamic range of sedimentary data sets is comparable to those acquired from thermal remanences moreover when compared directly with such independent measures of magnetic field variations as beryllium isotopic ratios and thermally blocked remanences there is considerable agreement among the various records when viewed over timescales of hundreds to thousands of years relative paleointensity data sets from more than a few thousand kilometers apart bear little resemblance to one another suggesting that they are dominated by nondipole field behavior when viewed over timescales of a few tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of years however the records show coherence over large distances at least thousands of kilometers and may reflect changes in the dipole field on the basis of a sequence spanning the brunhes and matuyama chrons the magnetic field has oscillated with a period of about 40 ka for the last few hundred thousand years but these oscillations are not clear in the record prior to about 300 ka thus they are probably not an inherent feature in the geomagnetic field and the correspondence of the period of oscillation to that of obliquity is probably coincidence

limitations in correlation of regional relative geomagnetic paleointensity time domain correlations of common features among relative paleointensity records from sedimentary cores are invaluable to paleomagnetism and paleoclimatology sediments with high accumulation rates might now provide millennial scale correlations of temporal variations in the geomagnetic dipole moment errors in the ages of paleomagnetic data samples however can make such correlations difficult and unreliable we use spectral methods to assess the level of coherence expected among individual and stacked high resolution simulated paleointensity records for the time interval 0 75 ka correlations between individual paleointensity records are systematically degraded with decreased sedimentation rate and increased magnitude of age errors we find that with optimistic age errors and interpolation of depth sampled data to evenly spaced time series only short period signal in high resolution relative paleointensity is corrupted for currently available methods of establishing chronologies we estimate the minimum characteristic timescale of correlative features between pairs of regional stacked records at about 4 5 kyr from an analysis of napis 75 and sapis data it appears that the limit is inherent to the regional stacks and not a consequence of comparison of distant independent data sets a detailed comparison of the napis 75 and sapis stacks shows that this limit is likely larger perhaps 6 kyr at long periods the two regional stacks are more poorly correlated than those from our simulations suggesting somewhat larger age errors in the individual paleointensity records

ash layers from iceland in the greenland grip ice core correlated with oceanic and land sediments four previously known ash layers ash zones i and ii saksunarvatn and the settlement layer all originating in iceland have been identified in the central greenland ice core grip this correlation of the ash between the different environments is achieved by comparison of the chemical composition of glass shards from the ash this establishes and confirms detailed correlations between the different types of depositional records and the absolute dating of the younger part of the ice core by counting annual layers dates the eruptions accurately a precise connection with dates obtained by14c beyond the range of dendrochronology is established which provides an excellent confirmation of230th 234u dates from corals four additional icelandic ash layers have also been identified in the core but not yet correlated with known ash deposits

relative changes of the geomagnetic field intensity during the last 280 kyear from piston cores in the acores area abstract relative changes in geomagnetic field intensity over the last 280 kyears have been recovered from the study of three marine cores from the acores area one core was precisely dated by oxygen isotope study and the other two records were linked to it using light reflectance analysis which allowed precise correlation rock magnetic analysis shows that the main magnetic mineral is magnetite with a very homogeneous grain size distribution in the pseudo single domain range for the three cores changes in the amount of magnetite do not exceed a factor of 10 therefore these cores appear to be suitable for relative palaeointensity determinations two mineral magnetic components with periodicities of 23 and 18 kyears are present in the records of bulk magnetic parameters and natural remanent magnetisation nrm but the power at these frequencies is not significant at the 95 level for the normalised remanence records for each core normalisation of the nrm using different normalising parameters yields virtually identical results using saturation isothermal remanent magnetisation sirm as the normalising parameter the results of the three cores were then combined into a stacked curve squared coherence analysis between this stacked curve and bulk mineral magnetic parameters reveals that the 18 kyear component is still present in the record but that the power spectrum is barely above noise level at this frequency some of the features of this north atlantic record are consistent with the main characteristics already documented in other sedimentary or volcanic records for instance distinct periods of low intensity are observed around 40 120 and 190 kyears and periods of high intensity at 50 and 80 kyears because of the uniformity of the mineral magnetic characteristics of the three cores we suggest that this record may be a suitable palaeointensity reference curve for the central north atlantic ocean region

electrical conductivity measurements from the gisp2 and grip greenland ice cores the direct current electrical conductivity of glacial ice depends on its acidity1 3 and can also indicate changes in climate as ice formed in cold dusty periods has a high concentration of alkaline dust1 4 5 which significantly reduces the conductivity6 7 compared to warmer less dusty periods here we present electrical conductivity records for the greenland ice sheet project 2 gisp2 and greenland ice core project grip ice cores drilled 28 km apart to enable direct comparison of the results the upper parts of both records are consistent with previous evidence from other greenland cores4 8 12 for a stable greenland climate during the holocene and a series of warm events punctuating the last glacial period however there is a significant discrepancy between the two records in the bottom 10 of the cores calling into question recent reports of climate variability in the last interglacial4 8 and the penultimate glaciation8 at this stage it is too early to say what exactly is causing the discrepancy although ice flow may have introduced some discontinuities into the records further work will be necessary to establish how much climatic information it will eventually be possible to extract from the lower parts of the two cores

a 200 kyr record of cosmogenic radionuclide production rate and geomagnetic field intensity from 10be in globally stacked deep sea sediments the reconstruction of geomagnetic field intensity variations during the last 200 kyr from paleomagnetic data is at present the subject of numerous studies and major debate there is currently no generally accepted record here we present a global stacked record of 230thex normalized 10be deposition in marine sediments representing relative variations in 10be production rate which are translated into field intensity variations the record shows major periods during which the field intensity was between 10 and 40 of the present day value namely 30 42 60 75 85 110 and 180 192 kyr b p our results are compared to independently derived paleomagnetic studies and th u calibrations of 14c dates on corals during most of the observed period the geomagnetic field intensity was weaker than today resulting in an overall 30 reduced value for the last 200 kyr

long term secular variation of the geomagnetic field during the last 200 kyr recorded in sediment cores from the western equatorial pacific we have conducted a paleomagnetic study of five hemipelagic clay cores of 4 7 m in length obtained from the west caroline basin western equatorial pacific the purpose of this study is to clarify the long term secular variation of the geomagnetic field during the last 200 kyr using both intensity and directional changes one core was dated using oxygen isotope ratios 18o and characteristic magnetic susceptibility variations of about a factor of four allowed precise correlation between all cores the magnetic mineralogy is estimated to be dominated by magnetite of single domain sd and or pseudo single domain psd state the magnetic mineralogy and grain size are uniform throughout the cores which enabled us to obtain relative paleointensity variations as well as directional changes remanent intensity normalized by anhysteretic remanent magnetization arm indicates that sharp intensity drops to 20 of the present field occurred at about 40 and 190 kyr b p with a broader decrease around 110 kyr b p the former two are accompanied by anomalous remanent directions suggesting short polarity reversals or excursions their ages are close to those of the previously reported laschamp excursion and biwa i event a prominent intensity peak occurred immediately preceding the possible excursion at 40 kyr b p our results are in general similar to the recently reported datasets spanning the last 80 140 kyr from the somali basin the mediterranean and the sulu sea 1 3 the inclination record shows long term cyclic changes of several degrees in amplitude the intervals of the recurring variation are 40 50 kyr which is longer than the core s memory and is close to the milankovitch frequency associated with the change in obliquity of earth s rotational axis we infer that an external force such as orbital forcing could be a cause of the long term secular variation

new seismic data support cenozoic rifting in george vi sound antarctic peninsula summary new multifold seismic reflection and wide angle reflection refraction data across george vi sound antarctic peninsula show the presence of graben and horst structures indicating an extensional origin the data suggest that rocks of an accretionary complex and fore arc basin underlie the sound and are in faulted contact along its eastern boundary with volcanic and plutonic rocks of the associated mesozoic arc of western palmer land a cover of possible syn and postglacial cenozoic deposits drapes the structures the combination of new seismic synthetic aperture radar and previously acquired data suggests subduction related rifting in the sound was segmented with opening in the south predominately by normal extension whilst in the north dextral transtension predominated

ams radiocarbon dating and varve chronology of lake soppensee 6000 to 12000 14c years bp for the extension of the radiocarbon calibration curve beyond 10000 14c y bp laminated sediment from lake soppensee central switzerland was dated the radiocarbon time scale was obtained using accelerator mass spectrometry ams dating of terrestrial macrofossils selected from the soppensee sediment because of an unlaminated sediment section during the younger dryas 10000 11000 14c y bp the absolute time scale based on counting annual layers varves had to be corrected for missing varves the soppensee radiocarbon verve chronology covers the time period from 6000 to 12000 14c y bp on the radiocarbon time scale and 7000 to 13000 calendar y bp on the absolute time scale the good agreement with the tree ring curve in the interval from 7000 to 11450 cal y bp cal y indicates calendar year proves the annual character of the laminations the ash layer of the vasset killian tephra massif central france is dated at 8230 140 14c y bp and 9407 44 cal y bp the boundaries of the younger dryas biozone are placed at 10986 69 cal y bp younger dryas preboreal and 1212 86 cal y bp allerod younger dryas on the absolute time scale the absolute age of the laacher see tephra layer dated with the radiocarbon method at 10 800 to 11200 14c y bp is estimated at 12350 135 cal y bp the oldest radiocarbon age of 14190 120 14c y bp was obtained on macrofossils of pioneer vegetation which were found in the lowermost part of the sediment profile for the late glacial the offset between the radiocarbon 10000 12000 14c y bp and the absolute time scale 11400 13000 cal y bp in the soppensee chronology is not greater than 1000 years which differs from the trend of the u th radiocarbon curve derived from corals

geomagnetic secular variation as recorded in british lake sediments and its application to archaeomagnetic studies abstract lake sediments can play an important role in understanding and reconstructing temporal characteristics of the geomagnetic field as they potentially offer near continuous high resolution archives of magnetic information extending throughout the holocene to date lake sediment geomagnetic data has typically been excluded from british archaeomagnetic secular variation curves svc due to uncertainties with the acquisition of magnetisation by lake sediments this paper presents the argument that with regards to british datasets the real problem lies with poor chronological control and sets out to illustrate that with british archaeomagnetic data some progress has been made the results indicate that it is not currently possible to resolve secular variation on a time scale of 100 years from published british lake sediment data but more success has been made with data from archaeological sediments this level of detail has been considered necessary for the incorporation of lake sediment data into the british archaeomagnetic dataset as the ability to resolve short term geomagnetic changes is critical for the integration of any dataset into the british svc as the latter is predominantly employed to date archaeological architecture and artefacts requires that it has the ability to resolve changes over timescales relevant to human lifetimes using currently available data this retrospective critique confirms that in archaeological sediments depositional and thermoremanent magnetisation can record the same direction over the same time interval

depositional remanent magnetization toward an improved theoretical and experimental foundation the first theoretical predictions for the behavior of magnetic particles in water were that sedimentary magnetizations would be fully aligned with the ambient field yet redeposition experiments showed a strong and quasi linear dependence on the external field this empirically observed linearity has served as the fundamental assumption of sedimentary paleointensity studies for decades we present redeposition experiments which suggest instead that the relationship between depositional remanence drm and applied field may frequently be curved for magnetic fields in the range of the earth s numerical simulations using a flocculation model can explain the redeposition data and suggest that drm will be significantly non linear when the flocs are small several microns there is a strong dependence of floc size on salinity particularly in low salinity environments floc size has a profound influence on the efficiency of drm hence low salinity environment may give results with poor reproducibility the size of the floc in which magnetic particles are embedded is not accounted for in current methods of normalization yet is the most important parameter on the bright side however it now seems possible to quantitatively explain paleointensity in sedimentary systems opening the door to absolute paleointensity estimates from sediments whose key parameters of floc size distribution and settling times can be constrained

global changes in intensity of the earth s magnetic field during the past 800kyr recent advances in palaeomagnetic and dating techniques have led to increasingly precise records of the relative intensity of the earth s past magnetic field at numerous field sites the compilation and analysis of these records can provide important constraints on changes in global magnetic field intensity and therefore on the earth s geodynamo itself a previous compilation for the past 200 kyr integrated 17 marine records into a composite curve1 with the geomagnetic origin of the signal supported by an independent analysis of 10be production made on different cores2 the persistence of long term features in the earth s magnetic intensity or the existence of long term periodic changes cannot however be resolved in this relatively short time span here we present the integration of 33 records of relative palaeointensity3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 into a composite curve spanning the past 800 kyr we find that the intensity of the earth s dipole field has experienced large amplitude variations over this time period with pronounced intensity minima coinciding with known excursions in field direction reflecting the emergence of non dipole components no stable periodicity was found in our composite record and therefore our data set does not support the hypothesis that the earth s orbital parameters have a direct and strong influence on the geodynamo

beryllium 10 in the greenland ice core project ice core at summit greenland concentrations of the cosmogenic isotope 10be have been measured in more than 1350 samples from the greenland ice core project grip ice core drilled at summit greenland although a dust associated component of 10be retained by 0 45 m filters in some of the samples complicates the interpretations the results confirm that the first order origin of 10be concentration variations is changes in precipitation rate associated with different climate regimes this effect is seen not only between glacial and interglacial periods but also during the shorter dansgaard oeschger interstadials by contrast the 10be data do not support the interpretation of rapidly varying accumulation i e climate during the last interglacial they can however be used to help place limits on the origin of the ice in these events after taking into account variable snow accumulation effects variations in the 10be flux are observed probably caused by solar and geomagnetic modulation but possibly also by primary cosmic ray variations the most dramatic is a 10be peak 40 000 years ago similar to that found in the vostok ice core thus permitting a very precise correlation between climate records from arctic and antarctic ice cores the 36cl 10be ratio considering either total or only ice associated 10be shows significant variability over the whole core depth thus confirming the difficulty in using this parameter for dating ice cores

a high resolution relative paleointensity record from the gerlache boyd paleo ice stream region northern antarctic peninsula herein we document and interpret an absolute chronological dating attempt using geomagnetic paleointensity data from a post glacial sediment drape on the western antarctic peninsula continental shelf our results demonstrate that absolute dating can be established in holocene antarctic shelf sediments that lack suitable material for radiocarbon dating two jumbo piston cores of 10 m length were collected in the western bransfield basin the cores preserve a strong stable remanent magnetization and meet the magnetic mineral assemblage criteria recommended for reliable paleointensity analyses the relative paleomagnetic intensity records were tuned to published absolute and relative paleomagnetic stacks which yielded a record of the last 8500 years for the post glacial drape four tephra layers associated with documented eruptions of nearby deception island have been dated at 3 31 3 73 4 44 and 6 86 0 07 ka using the geomagnetic paleointensity method this study establishes the dual role of geomagnetic paleointensity and tephrochronology in marine sediments across both sides of the northern antarctic peninsula

time scale uncertainty of abrupt events in the geologic record arising from unsteady sedimentation defining the time scale of abrupt events in the stratigraphic record is a primary goal of high resolution paleoclimate analysis a significant hurdle in this endeavor is that abrupt i e millennial and submillennial events in deep time can rarely be temporally constrained accurately owing to the typical absence of high precision age control at the scale of the events instead the duration of abrupt events is commonly estimated via the linear partitioning of time between age control points e g defined using astronomical cycles or radiometric dates that bracket the event and span longer time intervals the flaw with this approach is that sedimentation is an unsteady process and does not proceed linearly with time here a numerical model parameterized by geologic data is used to quantify theoretical time scale uncertainties that result from unsteady sedimentation this work demonstrates that the duration of assumed millennial events estimated via a linear partitioning approach may be significantly in error even in complete astronomically calibrated and unbioturbated successions best suited to the study of abrupt paleoclimate change the uncertainties established in this study are largely a function of the precise statistical properties of the sedimentation process properties that are difficult to constrain empirically particularly over short time spans nevertheless this study illustrates how unsteady sedimentation sets an important limit on the attainable temporal resolution of the stratigraphic record with consequent implications for defining accurately the rates and durations of rapid events in earth history

new paleomagnetic data from the antarctic peninsula and their tectonic implications new paleomagnetic data presented here further constrain the relative motion of the antarctic peninsula relative to east antarctica during the mesozoic development of the southern ocean basins the antarctic peninsula ap is one of four crustal blocks that define west antarctica the others being the ellsworth whitmore mountains ewm thurston island eights coast ti and marie byrd land mbl a jurassic pole 155ma 124 e 64 s a95 7 1 n 10 vgps was obtained from the ap block which suggests that the ap block rotated clockwise between 175 and 155 ma due to significant early opening in the weddell sea basin a new early cretaceous paleomagnetic pole 182 e 74s a95 5 9 n 6 site mean vgps indicates that the ap block was in or near to its present day position with respect to east antarctica by 130 ma between 155 and 130 ma counterclockwise rotation of the ap ti blocks together with the southward motion of east gondwanaland probably resulted in subduction of weddell sea ocean floor beneath the southern ap block and initiated the palmer land deformational event a 130 ma pole from the ti block requires clockwise rotation of the ti and possibly the ewm blocks between 130 and 110 ma producing sinsistral strike slip motion between the ewm block and east antarctica and dextral transpressional motion between the ti ewm blocks and the ap block new ap block 110 ma and 85 ma poles from this study 199 e 74 s a95 6 9 n 13 vgps 152 e 86 s a95 7 5 n 6 vgps respectively are similar to equivalent age poles from east antarctica and suggest little or no relative motion between the antarctic peninsula and east antarctica northern and southern antarctic peninsula mid cretaceous poles are very much alike suggesting that the s shape of the antarctic peninsula is not due to oroclinal bending since 110 ma

new seismic data from the ronne ice shelf antarctica we present the first images of sub seabed structure to be obtained from beneath the ronne ice shelf single fold profiles totalling 158 km were recorded using a new form drag cable with explosives as source the survey was conducted in an area lying 100 km se of the orville coast antarctic peninsula the ice shelf at this location is about 350 m thick and the seabed undulates gently between 650 and 675 m below sealevel in the western part of the area acoustic basement outcrops at the seabed in the eastern part a set of open folds were observed with wavelengths of 5 6 km amplitudes of 200 300 m and a nne ssw strike direction these features match those observed on previous marine data obtained in the narrow shore lead at the front of the ice shelf and allow the strike of the structures to be traced for 70 km to the sw of the original observations existing models of the plate tectonic development of west antarctica have anticipated major dextral strike slip motion between the antarctic peninsula and the weddell sea but the new data shows no evidence for this indeed the structures can be interpreted as resulting from an episode of sinistral motion

a paleomagnetic approach toward refining holocene radiocarbon based chronologies paleoceanographic records from the north iceland md99 2269 and east greenland md99 2322 margins 1 we report the intercalibration of paleomagnetic secular variation psv and radiocarbon dates of two expanded postglacial sediment cores from geographically proximal but oceanographically and sedimentologically contrasting settings the objective is to improve relative correlation and chronology over what can be achieved with either method alone core md99 2269 was taken from the hunafloaall trough on the north iceland shelf core md99 2322 was collected from the kangerlussuaq trough on the east greenland margin both cores are well dated with 27 and 20 accelerator mass spectrometry 14c dates for cores 2269 and 2322 respectively paleomagnetic measurements made on u channel samples document a strong stable single component magnetization the temporal similarities of paleomagnetic inclination and declination records are shown using each core s independent calibrated radiocarbon age model comparison of the psv records reveals that the relative correlation between the two cores could be further improved starting in the depth domain tie points initially based on calibrated 14c dates are either adjusted or added to maximize psv correlations radiocarbon dates from both cores are then combined on a common depth scale resulting from the psv correlation support for the correlation comes from the consistent interweaving of dates correct alignment of the saksunarvatn tephra and the improved correlation of paleoceanographic proxy data percent carbonate these results demonstrate that psv correlation used in conjunction with 14c dates can improve relative correlation and also regional chronologies by allowing dates from various stratigraphic sequences to be combined into a single higher dating density age to depth model

comparison of oxygen isotope records from the gisp2 and grip greenland ice cores recent results1 2 from the greenland ice core project grip summit ice core suggest that the climate in greenland has been remarkably stable during the holocene but was extremely unstable for the time period represented by the rest of the core spanning the last two glaciations and the intervening eemian inter glacial here we present the complete oxygen isotope record for the greenland ice sheet project 2 gisp2 core drilled 28 km west of the grip core we observe large rapid climate fluctuations throughout the last glacial period which closely match those reported for the grip core however in the bottom 10 of the cores spanning the eemian interglacial and the previous glacia tion there are significant differences between the two records it is possible that ice flow may have altered the chronological sequences of the stratigraphy for the bottom part of one or both of the cores considerable further work will be necessary to evaluate the likelihood of this and the extent to which it will still be possible to extract meaningful climate information from the lowest sections of the cores

the role of the earth s mantle in controlling the frequency of geomagnetic reversals a series of computer simulations of the earth s dynamo illustrates how the thermal structure of the lowermost mantle might affect convection and magnetic field generation in the fluid core eight different patterns of heat flux from the core to the mantle are imposed over the core mantle boundary spontaneous magnetic dipole reversals and excursions occur in seven of these cases although sometimes the field only reverses in the outer part of the core and then quickly reverses back the results suggest correlations among the frequency of reversals the duration over which the reversals occur the magnetic field intensity and the secular variation the case with uniform heat flux at the core mantle boundary appears most earth like this result suggests that variations in heat flux at the core mantle boundary of the earth are smaller than previously thought possibly because seismic velocity anomalies in the lowermost mantle might have more of a compositional rather than thermal origin or because of enhanced heat flux in the mantle s zones of ultra low seismic velocity

crystal size variations in eemian age ice from the grip ice core central greenland continuous measurements of ice crystal size have been carried out on an 80 m sequence between 2790 and 2870 m depth in the grip ice core from central greenland the ice in this interval is at present considered to originate from the eemian interglacial period the record reveals that the crystal size in ice older than 100 000 yr is highly dependent on climatic conditions at the time of snowfall this dependence shows up as a strong correlation between delta 18 o values and crystal size throughout the eemian as well as a negative correlation between crystal size and several soluble and insoluble impurities although high resolution impurity records are available from selected parts of the eemian ice the study is not conclusive on which impurities are most effective in slowing grain growth it is shown that the normal grain growth process commonly observed in the upper few hundred metres of polar ice sheets does not yield grain sizes compatible with observed ones at this depth in the ice sheet even in those parts of the eemian ice where impurity drag effects are not present polygonization of crystals within the ice sheet and the nucleation and rapid growth of new grains at relatively high temperatures in the lowest part probably play an important role in producing the observed grain size variations the relevance of possible flow disturbances of the grip eemian climatic record for the results presented is discussed briefly

a high resolution holocene sediment record from hunafloaall n iceland margin centuryto millennial scale varability since the vedde tephra md99 2269 is a 25 m long core from hunafloaall a deep trough which runs northward towards the shelf break from the narrow neck of land which joins the northwest peninsula of iceland with the main land the core was recovered from the thickest part of an elongate shelf sediment body underlain by glacial diainictons with ages 26 ka bp 3 5 khz profiles indicate the presence of a reflector ri which can be traced over long distances twelve ams radiocarbon dates and the presence of the saksunarvatn tephra which is the origin for the ri reflector at 21 m core depth define a linear depth age relation with an accumulation rate of 200 cm ky the date on the core top is modern x radiographs indicate that the sediments are principally massive bioturbated muds the data were measured at resolutions of between 5 and 40 yr sample our primary data represent aspects of a multisensor track measurements b colour c grain size d sediment properties and e sediment magnetic properties principal component analysis pca was used to simplify the analysis of these five data sets and resulted in nine significant axes compared to over 70 original variables the explained variance on the first axes varied between 47 and 96 these time series were reduced to a common 50 yr sample interval which were then also subject to pca using the resulting pc scores we present three primary axes of environmental variability in hunafloaall that have century scale quasi periodicities and demonstrate that these are highly correlated with specific raw variables we focus on variables linked to changes in grain size and productivity and show regional coherence cores b997 321 and 330 in the coercivity grain size measure armj 20 armj 0 which have a close similarity to the detrended 14 c series this provides a potential link to the vigour of the thermohaline circulation to the north of the iceland shelf in the iceland and greenland seas our data indicate increas

sediment disentrainment and the concept of local versus nonlocal transport on hillslopes 1 a local formulation of the sediment flux on a hillslope describes the flux as a unique function of local hillslope conditions at any contour position x whereas a nonlocal formulation must take into account nonlocal upslope or downslope conditions that influence the flux at x local formulations are reasonable when particle motions involve small length scales associated with localized bioturbation of the soil column or with proximal surface transport such as rain splash nonlocal formulations may be more appropriate in steeplands where patchy intermittent motions involve large travel distances mostly over the surface once sediment motions are initiated the disentrainment process determines the distribution of particle travel distances which in turn forms the basis of nonlocal formulations that involve a convolution of hillslope surface conditions for example the land surface slope the kernel in the convolution integral which weights the effect of land surface conditions e g slope at all positions upslope or downslope of x derives from the formulation of the disentrainment rate and characterizes whether particle travel distances depend on conditions at the position where motions originate or vary as particles experience changing surface conditions during their downslope motions if hillslope properties controlling transport e g surface slope are defined or measured at a specified resolution then motions smaller than this resolution cannot be attributed to these properties resolved at a smaller scale in essence the relative importance of local and nonlocal transport depends on the scale of particle motions compared to the relevant scale of hillslope properties that drive transport

padm2m a penalized maximum likelihood model of the 0 2 ma palaeomagnetic axial dipole moment summary we present a new time varying model for palaeomagnetic axial dipole moment padm for the past 2 myr and compare it with earlier virtual axial dipole moment vadm reconstructions which have been based on stacking and averaging scaled relative palaeointensity records the padm is derived from both absolute and relative palaeointensity data and constructed using a new penalized maximum likelihood pml approach to recover a cubic b spline representation of axial dipole field variations on million year timescales the pml method is explicitly intended to reduce bias in estimating the true axial dipole moment that arises in average vadm reconstructions we apply the pml method to a set of 96 032 published data 1800 palaeointensities from igneous rocks 3300 archaeointensities and 86 relative palaeointensity time series of variable lengths and resolutions two models are discussed padm2mp is a trial model based on a subset of the nine longest available sedimentary records padm2m uses a comprehensive data set 76 records 81 446 data 10 records were eliminated and is our preferred model padm2m has a lower mean than existing vadm reconstructions but shows similarities in long period variability some differences in timing amplitude and resolution of certain features can be attributed to variations in age assignments others result from our more comprehensive data set and a reduction in bias attributable to pml modelling padm2m has an average axial dipole moment over 0 2 ma of 5 3 1022 am2 with a standard deviation of 1 5 1022 am2 the brunhes chron average 6 2 1022 am2 is higher than for earlier epochs of matuyama 4 8 1022 am2 as seen in some previous studies the power spectrum for our model agrees with previous estimates of the global palaeomagnetic power spectrum for frequencies up to about 102 myr 1 we see no distinctive evidence in the power spectrum for orbital forcing of geodynamo behaviour

orbit related long term climate cycles revealed in a 12 myr continental record from lake baikal quaternary records of climate change from terrestrial sources such as lake sediments1 2 and aeolian sediments3 4 in general agree well with marine records5 6 but continuous records that cover more than the past one million years were essentially unavailable until recently when the high sedimentation rate site of lake baikal was exploited1 2 7 8 because of its location in the middle latitudes lake baikal is highly sensitive to insolation changes9 and the entire lake remained uncovered by ice sheets throughout the pleistocene epoch making it a valuable archive for past climate here we examine long sediment cores from lake baikal that cover the past 12 million years our record reveals a gradual cooling of the asian continental interior with some fluctuations spectral analyses reveal periods of about 400 kyr 600 kyr and 1 000 kyr which may correspond to milankovitch periods reflecting orbital cycles our results indicate that changes in insolation were closely related to long term environmental variations in the deep continental interior over the past 12 million years

a 200 ka geomagnetic chronostratigraphy for the labrador sea indirect correlation of the sediment record to specmap abstract a chronostratigraphic framework for the last 200 ka based on relative variations of geomagnetic paleointensity has been derived for the labrador sea where 18o stratigraphies are compromised by lack of benthic foraminifera and environmental perturbations of the planktic record relative paleointensity records derived from three labrador sea piston cores are correlated to a recently developed 200 ka paleointensity composite sint 200 y guyodo j p valet earth planet sci lett 143 1996 23 36 the chronology for sint 200 was derived by correlating oxygen isotope stratigraphies from individual paleointensity records to the specmap chronostratigraphy the correlation of sint 200 to labrador sea paleointensity records allows the specmap chronology to be imported into the labrador sea although comparisons of the chronostratigraphy based on paleointensity correlations with those derived from ams 14c dates and 18o data indicate significant discrepancies support for the new chronostratigraphic framework is provided by 1 consistent correlation of labrador sea detrital layers to north atlantic heinrich layers 2 general consistency between planktic 18o values and the specmap reference curve and 3 feasible prediction for the age of ash layer 2 as the new chronostratigraphy is tied to specmap labrador sea sediment cores can now be directly compared with any specmap dated record

ice thickness and sea depth derived from reflection seismic measurements on the central part of filchner ronne ice shelf antarctica in january 1986 reflection seismic measurements were made in the central part of filchner ronne ice shelf north of henry and korff ice rises by a german oversnow traverse with the help of a newly developed ice streamer two people were able to obtain seismic records nearly every 5km over a distance of 150km within 3d processing of digitally recorded seismograms yielded profiles of ice thickness and sea depth the ice thickness varies from 400 to 500 m and is in good agreement with the thickness of 465 m at a drill hole the reflection seismic results are comparable with those obtained from aerogeophysical measurements

a paleomagnetic power spectrum we construct a power spectrum of geomagnetic dipole moment variations or their proxies that spans the period range from some tens of million down to about 100 years empirical estimates of the spectrum are derived from the magnetostratigraphic time scale from marine sediment relative paleointensity records and from a time varying paleomagnetic field model for the past 7 kyr the spectrum has the most power at long periods reflecting the influence of geomagnetic reversals and in general decreases with increasing frequency decreasing period the empirical spectrum is compared with predictions from simple models discrepancies between the observed and predicted spectra are discussed in the context of i changes in reversal rate ii overall average reversal rate iii cryptochrons iv the time taken for a reversal to occur and v long term paleosecular variations and average estimates of the field strength and variance from other sources 2005 elsevier b v all rights reserved

a high resolution late quaternary upwelling record from the anoxic cariaco basin venezuela results are presented of a high resolution study of the planktonic foraminiferal faunas from two piston cores recovered from the cariaco basin in the southern caribbean sea the cariaco basin is a small anoxic marine basin on the northern continental margin of venezuela in an area today characterized by both seasonal trade wind induced upwelling and pronounced dry and wet seasons our data indicate that large changes in the intensity of upwelling and hence trade wind strength occurred in this region during the last glacial interglacial transition and throughout the holocene during the last glacial lowstand of sea level the cariaco basin was effectively isolated from the open caribbean along its northern margin by the then largely emergent tortuga bank oxic conditions existed in the deep cariaco basin at this time and surface productivity was low about 12 600 years ago the abrupt initiation of strong upwelling over the basin and the onset of permanent anoxia in the deep waters are coincident with the rapid rise of sea level that accompanied the peak interval of meltwater discharge from the laurentide ice sheet into the gulf of mexico strong upwelling between 12 600 and about 10 000 years ago may be related to intensified trade winds resulting in part from cooler sea surface temperatures in the caribbean and gulf of mexico after about 10 000 years ago upwelling intensity was reduced though highly variable a preliminary frequency domain analysis of the holocene portion of the cariaco basin time series suggests that solar forcing may explain a significant component of the century scale variability observed in the record of upwelling and trade wind strength

limitations on stratigraphic analyses due to incomplete age control and their relevance to sedimentary paleomagnetism abstract a major limitation in the analysis of physical quantities measured from a stratigraphic core is incomplete knowledge of the depth to age relationship for the core records derived from diverse locations are often compared or combined to construct records that represent a global signal time series analysis of individual or combined records is commonly employed to seek quasi periodic components or characterize the timescales of relevant physical processes assumptions that are frequently made in the approximation of depth to age relationships can have a dramatic and harmful effect on the spectral content of records from stratigraphic cores a common procedure for estimating ages in a set of samples from a stratigraphic core is to assign based on complementary data the ages at a number of depths tie points and then assume a uniform accumulation rate between the tie points imprecisely dated or misidentified tie points and naturally varying accumulation rates give rise to discrepancies between the inferred and the actual ages of a sample we develop a statistical model for age uncertainties in stratigraphic cores that treats the true but in practice unknown ages of core samples as random variables for inaccuracies in the ages of tie points we draw the error from a zero mean normal distribution for a variable accumulation rate we require the actual ages of a sequence of samples to be monotonically increasing and the age errors to have the form of a brownian bridge that is the errors are zero at the tie points the actual ages are modeled by integrating a piecewise constant randomly varying accumulation rate in each case our analysis yields closed form expressions for the expected value and variance of resulting errors in age at any depth in the core by monte carlo simulation with plausible parameters we find that age errors across a paleomagnetic record due to misdated tie points are likely of the same order as the tie point discrepancies those due to accumulation rate variations can be as large as 30 kyr but are probably less than 10 kyr we provide a method by which error estimates like these can be made for similar stratigraphic dating problems and apply our statistical model to an idealized marine sedimentary paleomagnetic record both types of errors severely degrade the spectral content of the inferred record we quantify these effects using realistic tie point ages their uncertainties and depositional parameters

the δ18o record along the greenland ice core project deep ice core and the problem of possible eemian climatic instability over 70 000 samples from the 3029 m long greenland ice core project grip ice core drilled on the top of the greenland ice sheet summit have been analyzed for 8o a highly detailed and continuous 8o profile has thus been obtained and is discussed in terms of past temperatures in greenland we also discuss a three core stacked annual 8o profile for the past 917 years the short term 50 years variability of the annual 8o signal is found to be 1 in the holocene and estimates for the coldest parts of the last glacial are 3 or higher these data also provide insights into possible disturbances of the stratigraphic layering in the core which seems to be sound down to the onset of the eemian spectral analysis of highly detailed sequences of the profile helps determine the smoothing of the 8o signal which for the holocene ice is found to be considerably stronger than expected we suggest this is due to a process involving diffusion of water molecules along crystal boundaries in the recrystallizing ice matrix deconvolution techniques were employed for restoring with great confidence the highly attenuated annual 8o signal in the holocene we confirm earlier findings of dramatic temperature changes in greenland during the last glacial cycle abrupt and strong climatic shifts are also found within the eem sangamon interglaciation which is normally recorded as a period of warm and stable climate in lower latitudes the stratigraphic continuity of the eemian layers is consequently discussed in section 3 of this paper in terms of all pertinent data which we are not able to reconcile

chronology errors and their effects on the recovery of characteristic time scales of the geodynamo from relative paleointensity abstract the intensity of earth s magnetic field has been modeled as a continuing sequence of growths and decays due to a rotating parametric instability rpi of the fluid core taking paleomagnetic intensity as a proxy for the turbulent fluid velocity field timescales of motion in the fluid core and geodynamo can be inferred from estimates of growth and decay while such inferences may be in error from several possible sources this work examines the effect of age errors on relative paleointensity data from cores of marine sediments true temporal variations in paleomagnetic intensity are distorted by stretching and compressing the observations in time and displacement in age of paleomagnetic features due to errors in the ages of paleomagnetic samples for the interval 0 75 ka growths and decays previously found in three single site records are seen in one composite stack but not in a second composite stack over the same age interval the coherence spectra for all pairs of individual records that make up the stack illustrate the apparent smoothing of relative paleointensity records that are stacked over a common age interval we further demonstrate that the events seen in both the stack and the single core records are predictable from the same method of pairwise coherence thus single site and composite stacks can both be used to estimate growth and decay rates of the paleomagnetic field provided constraints from coherence of pairs making up the stack are respected it is also concluded that temporal properties of a growth and decay process are best obtained from individual records and then stacked by event even though these events may appear at different times as a result of discrepancies in age models the main contribution of this work is therefore to confirm the previous analysis of growth and decay in sequences of relative paleointensity using a newly developed analytical model

calibration of the c 14 timescale over the past 30 000 years using mass spectrometric u th ages from barbados corals uranium thorium ages obtained by mass spectrometry from corals raised off the island of barbados confirm the high precision of this technique over at least the past 30 000 years comparison of the u th ages with 14c ages obtained on the holocene samples shows that the u th ages are accurate because they accord with the dendrochronological calibration before 9 000 yr bp the 14c ages are systematically younger than the u th ages with a maximum difference of 3 500 yr at 20 000 yrbp the u th technique thus provides a way of calibrating the radiocarbon timescale beyond the range of dendrochronological calibration

normalized remanence in sediments of the western equatorial pacific relative paleointensity of the geomagnetic field piston cores from the ontong java plateau collected during the eurydice expedition have been used to estimate regional geomagnetic paleointensity rock magnetic measurements of the sediments show that 1 the remanence is carried by stable pseudo single domain magnetite 2 the grain sizes and concentrations are relatively uniform with respect to the normalization technique and 3 susceptibility is an adequate parameter for normalizing remanent intensity in order to determine relative variations in the intensity of the paleomagnetic field we therefore have measured the remanent intensity both natural and demagnetized to 15 mt and susceptibility of archive quarters of three cores at centimeter intervals using an automated through bore magnetometer a further test of the normalized intensity records is provided by the coherence function between the normalized remanence and the susceptibility of the cores one of our cores displays high coherence over a broad range of frequencies while for two others coherence is insignificantly different from zero at the 95 level of confidence oxygen isotopic records paleontological datum levels and the brunhes matuyama boundary provide an independent temporal framework for inter core comparison when the two cores which pass our acceptance criteria are placed on a common time scale the coherence between the normalized intensity records is significantly different from zero at well above the 95 level of confidence suggesting some common input signal over the same band of frequencies furthermore there is a great deal of similarity between the records from the ontong java plateau and a record from core rc10 167 taken some 3000 km to the north the distribution of intensities obtained from these sedimentary records has the same shape as the absolute virtual dipole moment data obtained from lava flows 0 5 ma with a slightly smaller standard deviation the inter core agreement within a single region the similarity of records from 3000 km apart and the general correspondence of statistical character of these sediments with lava flow data all argue that the normalized intensity records presented here reflect variations in the intensity of the ancient geomagnetic field spectral analysis of the paleointensity time series shows that there a is significant enhancement of variance concentrated in frequencies around 33 thousand years over the period 0 350 ka this feature is however lacking for the period 350 700 ka

paleomagnetic secular variation at vulcano aeolian islands during the last 135 kyr abstract paleosecular variation psv of the earth s magnetic field during the last 135 kyr has been investigated in lavas scoriae and pyroclastic rocks of vulcano aeolian islands about 1000 samples have been collected at 77 sites from 25 distinct volcanic units whose age is either known from published isotopical data or constrained on the grounds of statigraphical relationships magnetic mineralogy investigation shows that ti magnetite is the main ferromagnetic mineral at most sites secondary magnetization components are either absent or easily removed by stepwise thermal or alternating field demagnetization the mean site direction of the characteristic remanent magnetization is usually well defined since the semi angle of confidence is greater than 5 at only four sites the mean paleomagnetic direction over the last 135 kyr d 9 4 i 53 2 95 3 5 differs from the geocentric axial dipole gad at vulcano d 0 i 57 8 and might be interpreted as the effect of a long term non axial dipolar component the psv record from vulcano agrees well with those from the lacustrine sediments of lago grande di monticchio 100 kyr bp and lago di mezzano 30 kyr bp located in the italian peninsula brandt et al quat sci rev 18 1999 961 976 the inclination anomaly i found at vulcano corresponds to about half of the shallowing observed in the sediments of the two lakes and the declination anomaly d may be used to tie the declination values derived from azimuthally unoriented cores to the geographical reference system in order to find the optimum site to be used as reference for psv studies in italy the angular values of the earth s magnetic field measured at the 113 repeat stations of the italian geomagnetic network coticchia et al boll geod sci aff 40 2001 277 291 have been analyzed with the relocation via pole method noel and batt geophys j int 102 1990 753 756 the viterbo station lat 42 27 n long 12 02 e proved the best since the mean error is 0 3 for both declination and inclination wherever the original psv site is located in italy a preliminary composite psv curve for the last 30 kyr bp is thus proposed merging and relocating to viterbo the data from vulcano and the curve from lago di mezzano corrected for the gad deviation found at vulcano

west antarctica in gondwanaland crustal blocks reconstruction and breakup processes abstract a combined bas usarp west antarctic tectonic project has provided new constraints on the crustal structure and geological evolution of west antarctica and its relationship to the rest of gondwanaland rb sr age dating has confirmed the presence of 1200 1000 m y old precambrian gneisses within west antarctica and aeromagnetic data have defined the extent of this precambrian crustal block paleomagnetic data have constrained the position of four of the five geologically distinctive west antarctic crustal blocks within gondwanaland they can be restored to their original position prior to breakup by 15 25 counter clockwise rotation with little or no relative displacement between the blocks a major period of within plate middle jurassic magmatism associated with an important crustal melting event that is clearly related to the breakup of the supercontinent has also been identified based on new isotopic and geochemical data

paleointensity of the geomagnetic field during the last 80 000 years high resolution records of the relative paleointensity of the geomagnetic field have been obtained from five marine cores three duplicate records were used to estimate the regional coherency of the data within a single area tyrrhrenian sea while the two others document the field variations in the eastern mediterranean and the southern indian ocean careful investigations of distinct rock magnetic parameters have established the downcore uniformity of the sediments in terms of magnetic mineralogy and grain sizes the time depth control was provided by oxygen isotopes and small scale variations in the deposition rates were constrained by means of tephrachronology the synthetic curve calculated from the mediterranean records provides a continuous record of the intensity variations during the last 80 000 years 80 kyr which correlates well with the sparse volcanic data available for the period 0 40 kyr the fact that identical behavior is seen in both data sets and that they also compare quite well with results from a core collected in the pacific ocean establishes the truly dipolar character of these variations the dipole field moment is characterized by large scale changes as shown by the existence of pronounced drops at 39 and 60 kyr alternating with periods of higher intensity the record suggests a periodic nature for these intensity variations however the period studied is not sufficiently long to state this conclusively these results demonstrate the potential of sediments for such studies and constitute a first step towards obtaining a global paleointensity record over a long period of time

creation and destruction of weddell sea floor in the jurassic new paleomagnetic data invite reassessment of the breakup history of parts of the pacific margin of gondwana due to the mesozoic opening of the southern ocean basins these data indicate clockwise rotation of the antarctic peninsula relative to east antarctica between 175 and 155 ma that would have created as much as 1000 km of pre anomaly m25 ocean floor in the weddell sea basin the paleomagnetic data also suggest that between 155 and 130 ma the antarctic peninsula rotated counterclockwise relative to east antarctica rotation that along with the southward motion of east antarctica would have caused subduction of the newly created weddell sea ocean floor beneath the southern antarctic peninsula east vergent folding and thrusting of jurassic back arc basin rocks along the southeastern antarctic peninsula known as the palmer land event probably resulted from deformation along this newly created convergent margin the presence of jurassic weddell sea floor would have isolated eastern gondwana east antarctica australia and india from the antarctic peninsula and western gondwana africa and south america encouraging increased marine faunal connections between the pacific and weddell sea mozambique somali ocean basins during the 175 to 130 ma interval after 130 ma the antarctic peninsula would have been connected to east antarctica via the other west antarctic terranes thereby facilitating land migrations between eastern and western gondwana

calibration of cycladophora davisiana events versus oxygen isotope stratigraphy in the subantarctic atlantic ocean a stratigraphic tool for carbonate poor quaternary sediments we calibrated the cycladophora davisiana abundances versus oxygen isotope stratigraphy back to220ka for the subantarctic atlantic ocean the relative abundances of c davisiana and 18omeasurements of benthic and planktic foraminifera have been determined in two sediment cores oxygen isotope stratigraphy has been used to date the c davisiana records and to assignspecmap ages to the c davisiana events comparisons with an existing calibration from thesubantarctic indian ocean show that the c davisiana events b2 c1 c2 d e1 e2 e3 f h i1 and i2occur synchronous within the errors of the oxygen isotope stratigraphy in the indian and the atlanticsectors of the southern ocean larger deviations occur only for events b1 and g furthermore the long term fluctuations in c davisiana abundances have been studied in a sediment core coveringthe last 700kyr based on biostratigraphic extinction levels ages for early brunhes c davisianaevents have been estimated major c davisiana abundance maxima occur approximately every100ka in conjunction with glacial interglacial cycles over the entire record

electrical measurements on the greenland ice sheet project 2 core the greenland ice sheet project 2 gisp2 electrical conductivity measurement ecm record is an indication of the concentration of h in the core the ecm detected seasonal variations in the nitrate concentration of the core which were used to assist in dating the core by annual layer counting volcanic eruptions that produce acidic aerosols are recorded in the ecm record evidence of biomass burning is detected by the ecm because fire related ammonium emissions neutralize the acids in the core rapid climate transitions associated with the younger dryas and dansgaard oeschger interstadial events alter the concentration of alkaline dust and are detected by the ecm the ecm has been used to develop stratigraphic ties between the gisp2 and the greenland ice core project cores users of the data should be aware of some instrument related artifacts in the ecm record

crustal growth of the antarctic peninsula by accretion magmatism and extension a subduction accretion model incorporating new geophysical data is presented to explain the geology of the antarctic peninsula from late palaeozoic to cenozoic time according to the model the peninsula consists of overlapping accretionary magmatic and extensional regimes that were diachronous across the peninsula and have built the crust to its present form the crust which contains a small proportion of sialic basement was mainly formed by accretionary and magmatic processes and modified to its present shape by extension the gondwanide orogeny for the antarctic peninsula is interpreted in terms of the accretionary processes

geomagnetic modulation of the 36cl flux in the grip ice core greenland geomagnetic field strength is expected to affect the production rate of cosmogenic isotopes such as beryllium 10 carbon 14 or chlorine 36 chlorine 36 data from the greenland ice core project grip ice core agree well with a production rate calculation based on a paleomagnetic reconstruction for the past 100 000 years over both long and short term variations a chlorine 36 peak at 38 000 years ago previously found in the beryllium 10 record from the vostok ice core can be explained by a period of low geomagnetic field intensity

the early to middle pleistocene boundary in the baza basin spain abstract the continental vertebrate fauna of cullar baza 1 granada spain occur immediately above the matuyama brunhes polarity boundary and therefore represent an initial record for the middle pleistocene all polarity zones for the late pliocene through middle pleistocene are found in an 80 m section which includes this fossil quarry the existing collection of abundant remains of micro mammals macro mammals and lithic artifacts indicating human activity can now be assigned an earliest middle pleistocene age of 0 75 ma another section 25 km across the neogene baza basin also has the matuyama brunhes polarity boundary however in this case the huescar 1 fossil quarry and the puerto lobo sites are both below the polarity boundary thus representing a record of the late early pleistocene at 0 9 ma differences in micro mammal species across these matuyama brunhes boundaries are significant and justify an approximately coincident biostratigraphic boundary between the biharian and toringian stages

ams radiocarbon dating of annually laminated sediments from lake holzmaar germany ams radiocarbon ages have been determined on terrestrial macrofossils selected from the annually laminated sediments of lake holzmaar germany the radiocarbon chronology of this lake covers the last 12 6 ka comparison of the radiocarbon dated varve chronology with tree ring data shows that an additional 878 years have to be added to the varve chronology the corrected c 14 varve chronology of holzmaar reaches back to ca 13 8 ka cal bp and compares favourably with the results from soppensee switzerland hajdas et al 1993 the corrected ages for the onset and the end of the younger dryas biozone are 11 940 cal bp and 11 490 cal bp respectively the ash layer of the laacher see volcanic eruption is dated at 12 201 224 cal bp and the ulmener tephra layer is dated at 10 904 cal bp

magnetostratigraphy of the orce region baza basin se spain new chronologies for early pleistocene faunas and hominid occupation sites abstract the orce fossil quarries in the baza basin of southeastern spain are a rich source of early pleistocene palaeolithic tools and vertebrate remains geologic fieldwork during the last decade has placed these fossiliferous strata within the context of a thick neogene continental sequence detailed lithostratigraphic and magnetostratigraphic results indicate that at least the upper 60 m of this sequence are of early pleistocene age the quarried strata venta micena barranco leon and fuentenueva 3 are from a narrow time span gazella borbonica equus stenonis and the beginning of more characteristic pleistocene fauna in the venta micena site with hippopotamus antiquus equus granatensis homo sp thus far no evidence for human occupation has been found within the earlier fuentenueva 1 quarry although many of the same terminal mn17 species have been found with hominids on the other side of europe at the dmanisi site earliest pleistocene in the republic of georgia

the effects of aliasing and lock in processes on palaeosecular variation records from sediments studies of sedimentary records of palaeointensity variation report periods as long as 50 kyr archaeointensity data show geomagnetic periods of 2 kyr with large ampli tudes sampling of the sedimentary records can be as coarse as 8 kyr so the apparent long periods could be caused by aliasing the sedimentary lock in process could smooth the record and remove short periods thereby preventing aliasing from occurring we examine possible effects of aliasing by creating a 100 kyr long synthetic sequence of palaeointensity variation with a similar spectrum to that of archaeomagnetic data from the last 12 kyr and resampling at longer intervals with no lock in smoothing aliasing produces spurious energy in the spectra at long periods when smoothing by the sedimentation process is applied the amplitudes of the aliased peaks are reduced but still cause significant spurious long period energy in the spectra for some sedi mentation rates we restrict our analysis to palaeointensity data but similar problems may also exist for coarsely sampled directional data to avoid aliasing we recommend a maximum sampling interval of 2 kyr

source of tiny wiggles in chron c5 a comparison of sedimentary relative intensity and marine magnetic anomalies 1 in addition to the well established pattern of polarity reversals short wavelength fluctuations are often present in both sea surface data tiny wiggles and near bottom anomaly data while a high degree of correlation between different geographical regions suggests a geomagnetic origin for some of these wiggles anomaly data alone cannot uniquely determine whether they represent short reversals or paleointensity variations independent evidence from another geomagnetic recording medium such as deep sea sediments is required to determine the true nature of the tiny wiggles we present such independent evidence in the form of sedimentary relative paleointensity from chron c5 we make the first comparison between a sedimentary relative paleointensity record odp site 887 at 54 n 148 w and deep tow marine magnetic anomaly data 43 n 131 w bowers et al 2001 for chron c5 the sediment cores are densely sampled at 2 5 kyr resolution the inclination record shows no evidence for reverse intervals within the 1 myr long normal chron c5n 2n rock magnetic measurements suggest that the primary magnetic carrier is pseudo single domain magnetite we choose a partial anhysteretic magnetization parm as our preferred normalizer and the resulting relative paleointensity record is used as input to a forward model of crustal magnetization we then compare the results of this model with the stacked deep tow anomaly records the two records show a significant degree of correlation suggesting that the tiny wiggles in the marine magnetic anomalies are likely produced by paleointensity variations an analysis of our sampling density suggests that if any reverse intervals exist at this site they are likely to be 5 kyr in duration furthermore we suggest that reverse intervals during chron c5n 2n documented in other locations are unlikely to be global

a stratigraphic network across the subtropical front in the central south atlantic multi parameter correlation of magnetic susceptibility density x ray fluorescence and δ18o records abstract computer aided multi parameter signal correlation is used to develop a common high precision age model for eight gravity cores from the subtropical and subantarctic south atlantic since correlations between all pairs of multi parameter sequences are used and correlation errors between core pairs a b and b c are controlled by comparison with a c the resulting age model is called a stratigraphic network precise inter core correlation is achieved using high resolution records of magnetic susceptibility wet bulk density and x ray fluorescence scans of elemental composition additional 18o records are available for two cores the data indicate nearly undisturbed sediment series and the absence of significant hiatuses or turbidites after establishing a high precision common depth scale by synchronously correlating four densely measured parameters fe ca the final age model is obtained by simultaneously fitting the aligned 18o and records of the stratigraphic network to orbitally tuned oxygen isotope j imbrie j d hays d g martinson a mcintyre a c mix j j morley n g pisias w l prell n j shackleton the orbital theory of pleistocene climate support from a revised chronology of the marine 18o record in a berger j imbrie j hays g kukla b saltzman eds milankovitch and climate understanding the response to orbital forcing reidel publishing dordrecht 1984 pp 269 305 d martinson n pisias j hays j imbrie t c moore jr n shackleton age dating and the orbital theory of the ice ages development of a high resolution 0 to 300 000 year chronostratigraphy quat res 27 1987 1 29 or susceptibility stacks t von dobeneck f schmieder using rock magnetic proxy records for orbital tuning and extended time series analyses into the super and sub milankovitch bands in g fischer g wefer eds use of proxies in paleoceanography examples from the south atlantic springer verlag berlin 1999 pp 601 633 besides the detection and elimination of errors in single records the stratigraphic network approach allows to check the intrinsic consistency of the final result by comparing it to the outcome of more restricted alignment procedures the final south atlantic stratigraphic network covers the last 400 kyr south and the last 1200 kyr north of the subtropical front stf and provides a highly precise age model across the stf representing extremely different sedimentary regimes this allows to detect temporal shifts of the stf by mapping mn fe it turns out that the apparent stf movements by about 200 km are not directly related to marine oxygen isotope stages

a depth derived pleistocene age model uncertainty estimates sedimentation variability and nonlinear climate change 1 a new chronology of glaciation spanning the last 780 000 years is estimated from 21 marine sediment cores using depth as a proxy for time to avoid biasing this depth derived age estimate the depth scale is first corrected for the effects of sediment compaction to provide age uncertainty estimates the spatial and temporal variability of marine sediment accumulation rates are estimated and modeled as an autocorrelated stochastic process depth derived ages are estimated to be accurate to within 9000 years and within this uncertainty are consistent with the orbitally tuned age estimates nonetheless the remaining differences between the depth and orbitally tuned chronologies produce important differences in the spectral domain from the 18o record using the depth derived ages we infer that there are weak nonlinearities involving the 100 kyr and obliquity frequency bands which generate interaction bands at sum and difference frequencies if an orbitally tuned age model is instead applied these interactions are suppressed with the system appearing more nearly linear

the structure of west antarctica from geophysical studies the subglacial topographical and geological configurations of west antarctica and the boundary zone between east and west antarctica are poorly known yet they are crucial to our understanding of the tectonic evolution of the pacific proto atlantic margin of gondwanaland preliminary results are presented of simultaneous airborne radio echo and magnetic sounding of 106 km2 of west antarctica including detailed maps of ice sheet and bedrock surfaces magnetics radio echo and other available geophysical data suggest interpretations of sub glacial geology

assessing the dipolar signal in stacked paleointensity records using a statistical error model and geodynamo simulations abstract stacks of globally distributed relative paleointensity records from sediment cores are used to study temporal variations in the strength of the geomagnetic dipole we assess the intrinsic accuracy and resolution of such stacks which may be limited by errors in paleointensity non dipole field contributions and the age scales assigned to each sediment core our approach employs two types of simulations numerical geodynamo models generate accurate predictions of time series of magnetic variations anywhere in the world the predicted variations are then degraded using an appropriate statistical model to simulate expected age and paleointensity errors a series of experiments identify the major contributors to error and loss of resolution in the resulting stacks the statistical model simulates rock magnetic and measurement errors in paleointensity and age errors due to finite sampling and approximations inherent in interpolation incomplete or inaccurate tie point information and sedimentation rate variations data sampling and interpolation to a designated age scale cause substantial decorrelation and control the maximum level of agreement attainable between completely accurate records the particular method of interpolation appears to have little effect on the coherence between accurate records but denser tie point data improve the agreement age errors decorrelate geomagnetic signals usually at shorter periods although they can destroy coherence over a broad range of periods the poor correlation between neighboring paleomagnetic records often observed in real data can be accounted for by age errors of moderate magnitude in a global dataset of 20 records modeled after the sint800 compilation and spanning 300 kyr our results show that dipole variations with periods longer than about 20 kyr can be recovered by the stacking process reasonable contributions to error in the paleointensity itself have a modest influence on the result as do non dipole field contributions whose effect is minor at periods longer than 10 kyr modest errors in the ages of tie points probably account for most of the degradation in geomagnetic signal stacked sedimentary paleomagnetic records can be improved by denser temporal sampling and careful selection of independent high quality tie points

relative variations in geomagnetic intensity from sedimentary records the past 200 000 years abstract eighteen records of relative paleointensity from marine sediments have been compiled in order to retrace the global changes in geomagnetic intensity during the past 200 kyr before dealing with any other source of noise we focused on problems inherent to the depth versus time correlations the accuracy and resolution of dating mostly deduced from isotopic stratigraphy were identified as significant factors of distortion we found also that different time scales have been used by authors after readjustment with respect to the same time scale the records were stacked together and the statistical significance of the results tested by a bootstrap technique seventeen records shown to be coherent were combined into a synthetic curve defined as sint 200 other stacks combining various subsets of data were found to be identical to sint 200 except for changes in dispersion in fact the dispersion around sint 200 could be reduced further by improving the correlations without violating the stratigraphy a procedure which at least for some records emphasizes the need for more detailed depth time correlations another characteristic emerging from the results is that paleointensity features as short as 10 kyr are observed between 120 200 ka and can thus in principle be resolved however subsequent refinement is still necessary for this period which is documented by fewer records than the following 120 kyr finally we compared sint 200 with the records from the labrador sea and the lac du bouchet ldb both of which rely mostly on 14c chronology the two records show satisfactory agreement with sint 200 when transferred with respect to the age model established by correlating their 18o labrador and susceptibility features ldb with the 18o reference record the offset of 7 kyr at 40 ka measured in both cases between the 14c and 18o ages is higher than the value deduced from a recent model of a geomagnetic field control of 14c production 1 but is not inconsistent with recent u th dates

geophysical evidence for the east antarctic plate boundary in the weddell sea an improved gondwanaland reconstruction compatible with geological and geophysical information from the surrounding oceans and continents seems to require microplates to solve the enigmatic pre early mesozoic tectonic relation between west and east antarctica1 new multi channel seismic reflection data from the southeastern weddell sea acquired during the 1984 85 norwegian antarctic research expedition nare have outlined a linear wsw ene trending basement ridge buried below the continental slope over a distance of 700 km this structural high truncates the trend of the large sedimentary basins below the filchner and ronne ice shelves and may continue to within a few hundred kilometres of the antarctic penninsula we interpret the basement ridge as part of the east antarctic plate boundary during the break up of gondwana the morphology and structure of this boundary show greater apparent similarity to a rifted or obliquely rifted margin than to the sheared margin which is predicted by current reconstructions2 3 a linear east antarctic plate margin extending to the vicinity of the antarctic peninsula makes any post rift micro plate motion in the weddell embayment unlikely

alder creek sanidine acs 2 a quaternary 40ar 39ar dating standard tied to the cobb mountain geomagnetic event accurate 40ar 39ar dating of quaternary and holocene samples requires a standard neutron fluence monitor of appropriate age this standard should be isotopically homogenous at the scale of analysis and should be well intercalibrated with other standards several such standards have been proposed including sanidine from the 1 19 ma alder creek rhyolite acs turrin et al 1994 turrin b d donnely nolan j m hearn b c jr 1994 40ar 39ar ages from the rhyolite of alder creek california age of the cobb mountain normal polarity subchron revisited geology 22 251 254 this sanidine is satisfactorily homogeneous well intercalibrated with fish canyon sanidine fcs renne et al 1998 renne p r swisher c c deino a l karner d b owens t l depaolo d j 1998 intercalibration of standards absolute ages and uncertainties in 40ar 39ar dating chem geol 145 117 152 and is linked to the astronomically calibrated magnetic polarity time scale since the alder creek rhyolite lava is the type occurrence of the cobb mountain event cm we collected 408 kg of this rock from which we anticipate being able to extract more than 8 kg of 425 m sanidine crystals analyses of sanidine phenocryts from the acs 2 from three separate irradiations and two distinct grain sizes yield ages ranging from 1 190 0 004 to 1 194 0 003 ma1 with a weighted mean age of 1 193 0 001 ma mswd 0 74 n 225 based on fcs 28 02 ma renne et al 1998 renne p r swisher c c deino a l karner d b owens t l depaolo d j 1998 intercalibration of standards absolute ages and uncertainties in 40ar 39ar dating chem geol 145 117 152 the value of the intercalibration factor renne et al 1998 renne p r swisher c c deino a l karner d b owens t l depaolo d j 1998 intercalibration of standards absolute ages and uncertainties in 40ar 39ar dating chem geol 145 117 152 is rfcsacs 2 0 04229 0 00012 n 8 identical with that of the original acs measurements 0 04229 0 00012 renne et al 1998 renne p r swisher c c deino a l karner d b owens t l depaolo d j 1998 intercalibration of standards absolute ages and uncertainties in 40ar 39ar dating chem geol 145 117 152 the age of acs 2 is in agreement with the recent astronomical calibration of the cm event 1 215 to 1 190 ma channell j e t mazaud a sullivan p turner s raymo m e 2002 geomagnetic excursions and paleointensities in the matuyama chron at ocean drilling program sites 983 and 984 iceland basin j geophys res 107 6 10 1029 2001jb000491 the apparent absence of xenocrysts and excess argon suggests that multigrain analyses are feasible and therefore the amount of material can be tailored to experimental requirements aliquots from various grain sizes will be available upon request zircon is also potentially available which may be of interest to u th he researchers