Magnetostratigraphic correlation of the Upper Cretaceous System in the North Pacific

Abstract

Magnetostratigraphic data for Upper Cretaceous sedimentary strata in widely separated regions of the North Pacific, including Japan, Far East Russia and western North America, are reviewed in terms of calibration to the geomagnetic polarity time scale and regional correlation. A series of normal and reversed polarity zones are recognized in the Upper Cretaceous strata in Shikoku and Hokkaido, Japan, and South Sakhalin, Far East Russia. Combined magnetostratigraphic and biostratigraphic correlation has assigned these zones to the Late Cretaceous geomagnetic polarity chrons including C31r through C33r and the Cretaceous long normal interval. Corresponding geomagnetic reversals have been documented from the Upper Cretaceous successions of the Western Interior of North America, in combination with high-resolution ammonite biostratigraphy and radiometric age dates. Biostratigraphy of the Great Valley Sequence in California is also well-defined, but there is only one reversed interval that can be correlated with polarity chron C33r. The most complete record of polarity reversals in South Sakhalin would provide an integrated reference scheme which can be of significant use not only to correlate dissimilar faunal assemblages of disparate regions in the North Pacific, but also to contribute to a global definition of Upper Cretaceous stage boundaries.