High Resolution Polarity Records and the Stratigraphic and Magnetostratigraphic Correlation of Late Miocene and Pliocene (Pannonian, s.l.) Deposits of Hungary

Abstract

Stratigraphic records from four widely spaced holes, continuously cored from the surface of the Great Hungarian Plain to depths of 1.2 to 2 km, have been correlated and placed in relative stratigraphie positions by means of seismic profiles. Polarity zonations for two 2-km-thick cored sections were correlated with the polarity time scale for much of late Miocene time, and two cored sections, 1.2 km thick, were correlated with the polarity time scale for much of Pliocene and Pleistocene time. The high-resolution magnetostratigraphic records from the four cored sections contain many more polarity reversals than the accepted polarity time scale for the late Miocene and Pliocene; because of this, only the broader polarity intervals in the drill cores are correlated with the polarity time scale. The new seismic-stratigraphic and magnetostratigraphic correlations have led to revised correlations of Pannonian stratigraphie units in the subsurface, and to a new chronostratigraphic framework and model for the manner and timing of accumulation of late Miocene and Pliocene deposits in the Pannonian Basin. The high resolution polarity zonations also provide new information on the detailed character of the polarity time scale for parts of late Miocene, Pliocene, and Pleistocene time.