During Ocean Drilling Program Leg 191, ~100 m of mid-Cretaceous igneous crust was cored at Site 1179 (41.08°N, 159.96°E), located within magnetic Anomaly M8 on the abyssal plain of the northwest Pacific Ocean near Shatsky Rise. Paleomagnetic data from this section are significant because they can constrain the mid-Cretaceous Pacific plate paleolatitude and paleomagnetic pole, both of which can be used to infer tectonic drift and other geodynamic processes. In this study, we analyzed the paleomagnetism of 122 samples from 40 flows in the Site 1179 basalt section. Comparison of inclination data among flows implies 13 independent measurements of the paleomagnetic field. Assuming a reversed magnetic polarity because of the site location within Anomaly M8, the data give a mean paleocolatitude of 88.1° ± 6.8° (corresponding to a paleolatitude of 1.9°N). The paleocolatitude is consistent with other mid-Cretaceous Pacific paleomagnetic data that indicate ~39° northward drift of the western Pacific plate since mid-Cretaceous time. Comparison of observed between-flow colatitude variance with that expected from secular variation data suggests that secular variation may not have been completely averaged with the 13 independent groups sampled at Site 1179. Colatitude scatter in the section is markedly less in the deepest 33 m of the hole, indicating a shift from rapidly erupted flows in the bottom ~33 m of the section to more slowly emplaced flows above.
1Sager, W.W., and Horner-Johnson, B.C., 2004. Paleomagnetism of basaltic rocks cored at ODP Site 1179: implications for mid-Cretaceous Pacific plate paleolatitude and paleomagnetic pole. In Sager, W.W., Kanazawa, T., and Escutia, C. (Eds.), Proc. ODP, Sci. Results, 191 [Online]. Available from World Wide Web: <http://www-odp.tamu.edu/publications/191_SR/002/002.htm>. [Cited YYYY-MM-DD]
2Department of Oceanography, Texas A&M University, 317A Eller Building, College Station TX 77843-3146, USA. wsager@ocean.tamu.edu
3Department of Earth Science, Rice University, 6100 South Main Street, Houston TX 77005, USA.
Initial receipt: 23 July 2003
Acceptance: 19 August 2003
Web publication:
9 March 2004
Ms 191SR-002