Magnetostratigraphy Susceptibility Used for High Resolution Correlation Among Paleocene/Eocene Boundary Sequences in Egypt, Spain and the U.S.A.
Abstract
We use the magnetostratigraphic susceptibility (MSEC) technique to establish that the Global boundary Stratotype Section and Point (GSSP), defining the base of the Ypresian Stage (lowest Eocene), coincides with an erosional or non depositional hiatus. The Ypresian GSSP is located in the Dababiya Quarry near Luxor in Upper Egypt and represents the beginning of the Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) defined by a negative carbon isotope (?13C) excursion (CIE). While onset of the CIE is somewhat gradual in most reported Paleocene/Eocene (P/E) sections, at the GSSP it is very abrupt and begins immediately after an unusual lithologic change. By comparing the MS chron zonation from five well-studied marine sequences (the Dababiya Quarry GSSP, Jebel Qariya, also in Upper Egypt, Zumaia in northern Spain, Alamedilla in southern Spain, and the MGS-1 Harrell Core from southeastern Mississippi, USA) with that from the GSSP site, a period of reduced sedimentation and non-deposition through the boundary interval is identified in the GSSP. This interval, lasting ~20,000-30,000 years, is less than the biostratigraphic resolution for the site. Due to the hiatus in the GSSP, we have chosen Zumaia as the MSEC reference section for the P/E boundary interval. Because the correlation between the Zumaia section in Spain and the MGS-1 Core from the USA is excellent, and because the MGS-1 data set represents a longer interval of time than does the Zumaia data set, we use the MS data from the MGS-1 Core to extend the MS chron zonation from Zumaia and establish an MS composite reference section (MS CRS) for the P/E boundary interval. Orbital forcing frequencies are then identified, via spectral analysis, to determine that the portion of the Zumaia reference section sampled represents ~400 kyrs of sediment accumulation. Extending the MS chron zonation into the MS CRS allows age assignment to MS chrons for all five sections with a resolution of ~20,000 years.
- Publication:
-
AGU Spring Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- May 2006
- Bibcode:
- 2006AGUSMGP41B..01E
- Keywords:
-
- 4277 Time series experiments (1872;
- 3270;
- 4475);
- 4901 Abrupt/rapid climate change (1605);
- 4948 Paleocene/Eocene thermal maximum;
- 1135 Correlative geochronology;
- 1520 Magnetostratigraphy