Paleomagnetism of Eocene Intrusive Rocks, Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming

The Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming are a large Precambrian-cored Laramide uplift. Intruding the Black Hills are a diverse suite of igneous rocks, which include phonolites, trachytes, latites, garnet-bearing rhyolites, and pyroxenites. These intrusive bodies range in size from several meter outcrop-scale bodies, to several 10s of km wide intrusive complexes. New geochronology (⁴⁰Ar-³⁹Ar) data indicate many of these intrusive rocks are between 58 and 45 Ma in age (Duke at al, 2002). As part of a larger paleomagnetic study aimed at Jurassic strata surrounding the Black Hills, a collection of 20 sites and 145 samples of the Eocene intrusive rocks was made. A combination of alternating field, thermal, and liquid nitrogen step-wise demagnetization revealed that, with a few exceptions, these rocks have two well-defined magnetization components. The first-removed component is interpreted to be a present (dipole) field magnetization, and is removed by 10 to 30 mT a.f., or 200 C thermal demagnetization steps. The second-removed components have either positive or negative inclinations, and are defined by demagnetization steps between 30 and 200 mT a.f., or 300 to 630 C thermal demagnetization steps. These components are interpreted to be ancient, presumably Eocene, magnetizations. A preliminary mean of the normal-polarity sites is D=352, I=59.3, k=26.7, a95=18.2, N=4, and of the reverse-polarity sites is D=154.9, I=-61.3, k=23.1, a95=18.2, N=4. The combined mean direction is D=344.9, I=60.3, k=28.8, a95=10.5, N=8. Two sites of rhyolites at Mt. Theodore Roosevelt have well-defined magnetization components, but either mixed polarity (Site 99Trr1), or reverse-polarity with what might be a transitional-field direction (D=27.7, I=-37.4, k=18.0, a95=18.6, n=5), and are not included in the calculation of means. The magnetizations recorded by these Eocene rocks are essentially identical to the expected direction for the Black Hills calculated from the Diehl et al., 1983 Eocene reference pole for North America. This result indicates that the Black Hills have experienced no rotation or large-scale tilting since the Eocene, that these intrusive rocks are suitable for additional study of geomagnetic field behavior. In addition, the mean direction reported here is similar to the Jurassic Morrison Formation from the Black Hills (D=349.7, I=61.8, k=87.4, a95=4.5, N=13), supporting an assertion that the Jurassic rocks had been remagnetized during the Eocene.