Quantifying inclination shallowing and representing flattening uncertainty in sedimentary paleomagnetic poles

Abstract

Hematite-bearing sedimentary rocks at Earth's surface are widespread and serve as an important paleomagnetic recorder. The geocentric axial dipole hypothesis posits that the long-term average of Earth's magnetic field is dipolar and that the time-averaged geomagnetic pole overlaps with the geographic pole. Using this hypothesis, the inclination (I) of a rock's magnetization can be translated into an interpreted paleolatitude (ϕ) of the location where the rock formed using the dipole formula:Unfortunately, the accuracy of paleomagnetic directions recorded by the detrital remanent magnetization (DRM) of sedimentary rocks has long been recognized as problematic due to the issue of inclination shallowing

Embracing Uncertainty to Resolve Polar Wander: a Case Study of Cenozoic North America

“…This flexibility also provides a more robust way to incorporate uncertainties that otherwise require the adoption of alternative parametric models (e.g. Pierce et al, 2022).…”