Spectrum of Quaziperiodic Variations in Paleomagnetic Activity in the Phanerozoic

Abstract —Detection of common quasiperiodicities in the paleointensity behavior and lengths of polarity intervals of the Earth’s magnetic field was carried out. The paleointensity data were analyzed in the 170 Ma–present day interval. Behavior of the lengths of geomagnetic polarity intervals was investigated within the interval spanning the entire Phanerozoic (540 Ma–present age). It was found that the spectrum of the main paleointensity variations and polarity interval lengths is discrete and includes quasiperiodic variations with characteristic times of 15, 8, 5, and 3 Ma. The characteristic times of these quasiperiodic variations in the geomagnetic field at the beginning and end of the Phanerozoic differed not more than 10%. The spectral density of quasiperiodic changes in the geomagnetic field changed cyclically over geological time. The connection between the behavior of the amplitudes of paleointensity variations, the lengths of geomagnetic polarity intervals, and their spectral density is shown. The spectral density of quasiperiodic paleointensity variations (geomagnetic activity) was relatively high in the 150–40 Ma interval (Cretaceous–early Paleogene). At this time, the amplitudes of paleointensity variations and the lengths of geomagnetic polarity intervals increased. Within the intervals spanning 170–150 Ma and 30 Ma–present age, the quasiperiodic variations of paleointensity were barely expressed against its background noise variations, while the amplitudes of paleointensity variations and the lengths of polarity intervals were decreasing. Alternations of the time intervals in which paleointensity variations acquired either a quasiperiodic or noise character took place during the evolution of the geomagnetic field.