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Late Palaeozoic palaeomagnetic data for Wrangellia: resolution of the polarity ambiguity

Abstract

Wrangellia and the Alaska Peninsula terrane are two of the many allocthonous terranes making up southern Alaska today. Palaeomagnetic data from these areas clearly indicate low palaeolatitudes in the early Mesozoic. Because of local and regional rotations, the mean declination of the palaeomagnetic vectors is uncertain. This, in addition to incomplete temporal coverage, has led to an ambiguity in the polarity of the vector, and hence an ambiguity in whether the palaeolatitudes determined are in the Northern or Southern Hemisphere. The data considered here have resolved the ambiguity for Wrangellia, and by implication for the Alaska Pennisula terrane, and also allow the construction of a highly speculative apparent polar wander curve.

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Panuska, B., Stone, D. Late Palaeozoic palaeomagnetic data for Wrangellia: resolution of the polarity ambiguity. Nature 293, 561–563 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1038/293561a0

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