Quantifying paleosecular variation: Insights from numerical dynamo simulations

Numerical dynamo simulations can be used to investigate paleosecular variation of Earth-like magnetic fields over several million-year timescales. Using a set of five numerical models integrated over the equivalent of 40-50 Myr, we generated synthetic data analogous to paleomagnetic data. We show that paleosecular variation among the five models is best discriminated by the relative variability in paleointensity (ɛ_F) and the precision parameter (k) of directions or poles. Whether the geodynamo operated in different regimes in its past can be best tested with these parameters in combination. Roughly one million years of time with 200 time-independent samples is required to achieve convergence of ɛ_F and k. The quantities ɛ_F and k correlate well with the average chron duration (μ_chr), which suggests that excursions and reversals are an integral part of palaeosecular variation. If applicable to the geodynamo, the linear dependence of k on μ_chr could help to predict μ_chr for the Earth during geologic times with no available reversal frequency data; it also predicts much higher average k for directions during superchrons (k ≈ 2500 for the Cretaceous normal superchron) than during actively reversing times (k ≈ 35 for the last 80 Myr). As such high k values are not observed, either this family of dynamo models is not applicable to the geodynamo, or the geodynamo regime acting during superchrons lies statistically within the same energy state as at present.