2005 Articles

Corrected Late Triassic Latitudes for Continents Adjacent to the North Atlantic

Kent, Dennis V.; Tauxe, Lisa

We use a method based on a statistical geomagnetic field model to recognize and correct for inclination error in sedimentary rocks from early Mesozoic rift basins in North America, Greenland, and Europe. The congruence of the corrected sedimentary results and independent data from igneous rocks on a regional scale indicates that a geocentric axial dipole field operated in the Late Triassic. The corrected paleolatitudes indicate a faster poleward drift of ~0.6 degrees per million years for this part of Pangea and suggest that the equatorial humid belt in the Late Triassic was about as wide as it is today.