Identification of the short-lived Santa Rosa geomagnetic excursion in lavas on Floreana Island (Galapagos) by (super 40) Ar/ (super 39) Ar geochronology

A set of closely related basaltic lava flows (supersite GA-X) on Floreana Island in the Galapagos Archipelago has a published record of an excursional or transitional direction (virtual geomagnetic pole located at 153.1 degrees E, 54.2 degrees S with alpha (sub 95) = 5.0 degrees ) and a geomagnetic field strength (1.1 X 10 (super 22) Am (super 2) ) that is only approximately 14% of the strength of the modern magnetic field (7.8 X 10 (super 22) Am (super 2) ). The very large age uncertainty of previous dating of a lava flow (G43) from this set, however, has prevented placing this event in the geomagnetic polarity time scale. Here we report highly reproducible and precise (super 40) Ar/ (super 39) Ar ages on the lava flow that indicate that the distinct geomagnetic excursion is 925.7 + or - 4.6 ka (2sigma ; n = 6; mean square of weighted deviates = 1.23). This shows that this dramatic weakening of the geomagnetic field is associated with the Santa Rosa Excursion instead of the Matuyama-Brunhes polarity reversal. Our high-precision (super 40) Ar/ (super 39) Ar ages for Floreana provide evidence for the global significance of the Santa Rosa Excursion.