A Late Eocene paleomagnetic pole for the Pacific plate

Abstract

Seamount magnetic anomaly inversions as well as DSDP paleomagnetic and equatorial sediment facies data constrain a paleomagnetic pole for the Pacific plate of Late Eocene age. The location of the pole at 77.5°N, 21.2°E implies 12.5 ± 1.6° of apparent polar wander for the Pacific plate during the last 41 ± 5 m.y. The Late Eocene pole is significantly different from the Pacific Maastrichtian pole at the 95% confidence level and indicates 7.2° of apparent polar motion of the Pacific between 69 and 41 m.y. B.P. The data source locations for the Late Eocene pole are scattered over a large area of the North Pacific and thus the consistency of the data supports the hypothesis that the north central Pacific plate has been rigid since the Eocene. The agreement of the Late Eocene pole with the motion predicted for the Pacific from hotspot models suggests that relative motion between the spin axis and hotspots has been small since that time. Additionally, this finding dictates that the significant amounts of hotspot versus spin axis motion inferred by other authors to have occurred since the Cretaceous must have instead occurred at a faster rate and concluded before the Eocene.