Paleomagnetic Field Variability and Revised Chronostratigraphy of Bering Sea (IODP Expedition 323) Deep-Sea Sediments During MIS 6–7 (130–144 ka)

We have developed replicate paleomagnetic secular variation (PSV) records for MIS 6–7 (130–244 ka) from IODP Ex. 3 23 Sites 1,343, 1,344, and 1,345 (Bering Sea). We can correlate the PSV at all three sites and identify 90 inclination features and 64 declination features. We have developed relative paleointensity records for all three sites by normalizing the demagnetized natural remanence to magnetic susceptibility. Paleointensity highs/lows can be tied to the PISO-1500 global oxygen-isotope-dated paleointensity record. This provides a significant increase in chronostratigraphic resolution for these sites. Only one excursion is recorded in the MIS 6–7 sediments of the Bering Sea—the Iceland Basin Excursion (∼196 ± 3 ka). Replicate records of the inclinations and declinations both flip quickly to reversed polarity directions, stay there for several hundred years and then flip quickly back to normal polarity directions. However, the inclination flips occur without significant declinations changes and visa versa. A statistical PSV study was carried out by averaging the data in 3 ky and 9 ky windows. There is a distinctive bimodal pattern to the angular dispersions with most time spent with low angular dispersion values (∼10°–15°), but there is an interval of more than 30 ky (185–220 ka) with angular dispersions averaging two to three times higher amplitudes (∼25°–35°). This interval also has low paleointensities and the Iceland Basin Excursion. This same, coupled pattern of high angular dispersion, low paleointensity, and excursions is noted synchronously in the central North Atlantic Ocean and may indicate a global pattern to the geomagnetic field.