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Paleomagnetism Of Late Pleistocene Sediments, Puget Lowland, Washington, Kurt L. Othberg

WWU Graduate School Collection

Establishment of late Pleistocene geomagnetic polarity events would provide useful time indices for regional and interregional stratigraphic correlations. Development of a geomagnetic polarity scale tied to radiocarbon dating for the Puget Lowland helps to elucidate the possible occurrence of world-wide (dipole) reversed events during the last 50,000 years. Stability and reliability tests indicate that late Pleistocene sediments exposed in the Puget Lowland record valid paleomagnetic directions. Puget Lowland geomagnetic polarity for the interval 11,000 years to 30,000 years BP was normal except for a short reversed period between 20,000 years and 15,000 years BP. In addition to sampling errors and …