The reliability of paleomagnetic data

Abstract

A set of seven reliability criteria has been applied to a previously published Phanerozoic paleopole database for Europe and North America and a Late Precambrian data set for Africa. A quality factor (0 < Q < 7) is assigned to a result, based on the number of criteria satisfied. Three criteria, dealing with age reliability, structural control and laboratory demagnetization analysis are deemed the most important; for the Phanerozoic results these are satisfied by a large majority of the results, whereas for the majority (up to 80%) of the African Late Precambrian results such criteria are not met. Criteria based on tests that constrain the age of the magnetization, such as those dealing with folds, conglomerates, contacts or reversals, enhance the reliability of a result; for the Phanerozoic, they are generally satisfied by about one third of the data, but for the Precambrian only a few results incorporate such tests. The assertion is made in this study that these criteria indeed qualitatively describe the reliability of results in broad terms, so that a dam set satisfying on average most of the criteria (Q > 4) can be described as more robust than a data set with average Q = 2. Statistical evaluations illustrate the difference in robustness of paleopole data sets between the well-studied Phanerozoic Era and the much more uncertain Late Precambrian.

Paleomagnetism of the Amazonian Craton and its role in paleocontinents

“…In addition, the direction must be different from the paleomagnetic directions obtained in younger geological units of the same region. van der Voo (1990) summarized the checks conceived to attest if the two basic assumptions of paleomagnetism were valid. Furthemore, van der Voo stablished that a reference paleomagnetic pole must have been obtained in a geological unit in structural continuity to the cratonic block and must have a precise dating (error within 4%).…”

Palaeoproterozoic to Neoproterozoic growth and evolution of the eastern Congo Craton: Its role in the Rodinia puzzle

“…A search in the latest version of the Global Palaeomagnetic Database (Pisarevsky, 2005) produced only few reliable data after filtering out poles with large age uncertainty and low reliability. Poles with Renne et al (1990) Q is the quality factor after Van der Voo (1990) and ranges from zero to seven, with the later representing the highest-quality data.…”

“…Q > 3 ( Van der Voo, 1990) are shown in Table 1. A group of Archaean-Early Palaeoproterozoic poles from Tanzania and Kenya (Brock et al, 1972;Patel and Raja, 1979;Meert et al, 1994b), although scattered, indicates low to medium palaeolatitudes for Congo at between 2.6 and 2.4 Ga.…”

Investigating the duration and termination of the Early Paleozoic Moyero Reversed Polarity Superchron: Middle Ordovician paleomagnetism from Estonia

“…Following Vandervoo (1990)'s reliability criteria, we find that passes 5/7 and passes 6/7. Field tests were not possible to constrain either pole's age, and lacks sufficient samples, a reliable , and .…”