A new technique for constructing apparent polar wander paths and the revised Phanerozoic path for North America

The usefulness and accuracy of apparent polar wander paths may be increased by (1) grouping data into standard time intervals of about 22 m.y. duration rather than entire geologic periods; (2) insisting upon reliable paleomagnetic poles and excluding virtual geomagnetic poles as unit vectors; and (3) determining interval poles by modal rather than vectorial analysis. This method has been applied to paleomagnetic data from nearly 150 references to revise the post-Early Ordovician path for North America.