Cycles of paleomagnetic activity in the phanerozoic

TL;DR

This study identifies quasi-periodic cycles in paleomagnetic activity over the Phanerozoic, revealing characteristic times of 15, 8, 5, and 3 million years, and shows how these cycles vary cyclically over geological time.

Contribution

It uncovers discrete quasi-periodic oscillations in paleointensity and geomagnetic polarity, and analyzes their cyclic variation over the Phanerozoic era.

Findings

Quasi-periodic oscillations with characteristic times of 15 Ma, 8 Ma, 5 Ma, and 3 Ma.

Spectral density of geomagnetic variations changed cyclically over time.

Amplitude and duration of paleointensity variations increased during 150-40 Ma.

Abstract

Quasi-periodic changes of the paleointensity and geomagnetic polarity in the intervals of 170 Ma to the present time and of 550 Ma to the present time were studied, respectively. It is revealed that the spectrum of the basic variations in the paleointensity and of the duration of the polar intervals is discrete and includes quasi-periodic oscillations with characteristic times of 15 Ma, 8 Ma, 5 Ma, and 3 Ma. The characteristic time of these quasi-periodic changes of the geomagnetic field at the beginning and at the end of the Phanerozoic differed by no more than 10%. The spectral density of quasi-periodic variations of the geomagnetic field changed cyclically over geological time. The relation between the behaviors of the amplitude of paleointensity variations, the duration of the polar intervals, and their spectral density was shown. Quasi-periodic variations of the paleointensity (geomagnetic activity) had a relatively high spectral density in the interval of (150 - 40) Ma (in the Cretaceous - Early Paleogene). In this interval, both the amplitude of paleointensity variations and the duration of polar intervals increased. In the intervals of (170 - 150) Ma and of 30 Ma to the present, a quasi-periodic variation in the paleointensity practically did not detect against the background of its noise variations. At the same time, the amplitude of the paleointensity variations and duration of polar intervals decreased. An alternation of time intervals in which the paleointensity variations acquired either a quasi-periodic or noise character took place during the geomagnetic history.