A Hyperactive Geomagnetic Field in the Late Visean (Early Carboniferous) From the Late Asbian Stratotype Section in Northwest England, UK

Hounslow, Mark W. and Biggin, Andrew J. and Cózar, Pedro and Somerville, Ian D. and Kamenikova, Tereza and Sprain, Courtney J. (2024) A Hyperactive Geomagnetic Field in the Late Visean (Early Carboniferous) From the Late Asbian Stratotype Section in Northwest England, UK. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 25 (4): e2023GC011. ISSN 1525-2027

Abstract

Plain Language Summary: Nearly synchronous global changes in geomagnetic polarity give both a detailed irregular pacing to geological time and provide a glimpse into heat transfer processes across the core—mantle boundary which drives the Earth's geodynamo. Although the Late Carboniferous is characterized by some well‐studied reversals, details of the tempo of polarity changes in the Early Carboniferous are unknown. This work addresses this by providing a detailed record of polarity changes over a ∼2 million year interval at around 334.5–332.5 million years ago‐from the Trowbarrow Quarry section in NW England. We demonstrate that these limestones likely preserve magnetization from close to their time of formation and record at least 31 polarity reversals. These observations support the idea that the Earth's dynamo was in a hyperactive reversing state similar to those sustained for tens of Myr in the Late Jurassic, parts of the Cambrian and the Late Ediacaran. It further corroborates a ∼200 Myr cyclicity in paleomagnetic field behavior since the Precambrian, potentially linked to variable core heat flow forced by mantle convection.