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Embracing Uncertainty to Resolve Polar Wander: a Case Study of Cenozoic North America
  • +11
  • Leandro Cesar Gallo,
  • Mathew Domeier,
  • Facundo Sapienza,
  • Nicholas L Swanson-Hysell,
  • Bram Vaes,
  • Yiming Zhang,
  • Maelis Arnould,
  • Athena Eyster,
  • Derya Gürer,
  • Agnes Kiraly,
  • Boris Robert,
  • Tobias Rolf,
  • Grace E Shephard,
  • Annique Van der Boon
Leandro Cesar Gallo
The Center for Earth Evolution and Dynamics

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

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Mathew Domeier
Centre for Earth Evolution and Dynamics (CEED)
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Facundo Sapienza
University of California, Berkeley
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Nicholas L Swanson-Hysell
University of California, Berkeley
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Bram Vaes
Utrecht University
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Yiming Zhang
University of California, Berkeley
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Maelis Arnould
Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1
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Athena Eyster
Johns Hopkins University
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Derya Gürer
University of Queensland
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Agnes Kiraly
Centre for Earth Evolution and Dynamics (CEED), University of Oslo
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Boris Robert
IPGP
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Tobias Rolf
University of Oslo
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Grace E Shephard
Centre for Earth Evolution and Dyanmics (CEED)
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Annique Van der Boon
The Centre for Earth Evolution and Dynamics
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Abstract

Our understanding of Earth’s paleogeography relies heavily on paleomagnetic apparent polar wander paths (APWPs), which represent the time-dependent position of Earth’s spin axis relative to a given block of lithosphere. However, conventional approaches to APWP construction have significant limitations. First, the paleomagnetic record contains substantial noise that is not integrated into APWPs. Second, parametric assumptions are adopted to represent spatial and temporal uncertainties even where the underlying data do not conform to the assumed distributions. The consequences of these limitations remain largely unknown. Here, we overcome these challenges with a bottom-up Monte Carlo uncertainty propagation scheme that operates on site-level paleomagnetic data. To demonstrate our methodology, we present an extensive compilation of site-level Cenozoic paleomagnetic data from North America, which we use to generate a high-resolution APWP. Our results demonstrate that even in the presence of substantial noise, polar wandering can be assessed with unprecedented temporal and spatial resolution.
27 Feb 2023Submitted to ESS Open Archive
01 Mar 2023Published in ESS Open Archive