Chronology and extent of late Cenozoic ice sheets in North America: a magnetostratigraphical assessment

Abstract

This paper summarises the advances which have been made in the magnetostratigraphic assessment of glacial and interglacial events of the past 3.0 million years, to facilitate the assignment of sediments to the Chrons and subchrons of the geomagnetic polarity timescale. In the absence of absolute dating tools, magnetostratigraphy affords a valuable means of assigning terrestrial ice age deposits to the geologic timescale, and most importantly, allows a correlation to be made with the more complete marine sedimentary record, where oxygen isotopic data also provide a robust paleotemperature record.