Paleoclimatic Context of Geomagnetic Dipole Lows and Excursions in the Brunhes, Clue for an Orbital Influence on the Geodynamo?
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Earth and Planetary Science Letters 275 (2008) 269–284 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Earth and Planetary Science Letters journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/epsl Paleoclimatic context of geomagnetic dipole lows and excursions in the Brunhes, clue for an orbital influence on the geodynamo? Nicolas Thouveny a,⁎, Didier L. Bourlès a, Ginette Saracco a, Julien T. Carcaillet a,b, F. Bassinot c a CEREGE, Aix-Marseille Université et CNRS, Europôle Méditerranéen de l'Arbois, BP 80, 13545, Aix en Provence, cedex 4, France b Laboratoire de Géodynamique des Chaînes Alpines (LGCA), Université Joseph Fourier et CNRS, BP53, 38041 Grenoble cedex 09, France c Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, CNRS-CEA, Avenue de la Terrasse, 91198, Gif/Yvette, France article info abstract Article history: The hypothesis of an influence of the astronomical precession on the geodynamo energy budget was recently Received 8 July 2008 reappraised by theoreticians. Paleomagnetic indications of such an influence remain controversial because Accepted 15 August 2008 reconstructions of paleointensity variations from sediments are suspected to be contaminated by lithological, Available online 2 October 2008 paleoclimatically induced influences. Three sets of complementary indicators are however available: Editor: R.D. van der Hilst 1) records of the direction of magnetization in sediments, 2) records of magnetic anomalies of the deep sea floor basalts and 3) records of production variations of cosmogenic isotopes from sediment and ice cores. Keywords: These records confirm the genuine geomagnetic origin of paleointensity lows and their narrow link with geomagnetic dipole lows excursions or short reversals recorded in various materials and often dated by radiometric methods. The excursions analysis of these time series and their comparison with δ18O records of the paleoclimate suggest that such cosmogenic isotope overproduction globally recorded geomagnetic dipole lows have preferentially occurred in the context of interglacial or dating transitional paleoclimates at the time of low or decreasing obliquity. The dominant periods, extracted with correlation the complex continuous wavelet transform technique, range from 40 to 125 ka, further suggesting a link with paleoclimates orbital parameters. These results encourage future efforts of research to improve the precision, the resolution astronomical precession obliquity and the dating of the time series of geomagnetic dipole low, in order to better decipher orbital signatures and geodynamo understand their origin. An important implication of this topic is that the next geomagnetic dipole low should be related with the present interglacial. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Geodynamo generation mechanisms became better understood with numerical modeling and experimental systems involving highly The Earth's magnetic field generation is attributed to a self-excited conducting liquids, usually liquid sodium, in rotating containers. Vanyo dynamo process, maintained by the active convection of electrically (1991) showed that former calculation by Rochester et al. (1975) and conducting fluids in the outer core modified by the Earth's rotation (e.g. Loper (1975) had largely underestimated the energy of the precession. Glatzmaier and Roberts,1995), and by a tidally-driven periodic forcing of New numerical experiments have re-evaluated this energy (Vanyo and the core boundary and by a shearing stresses due to the Earth's axis Dunn, 2001; Roberts and Wu, 2005). The power required to drive the precession, conditions known to produce rotational parametric instabil- geodynamo also appears to be smaller than previously estimated ities (e.g. Aldridge et al., 1997; Aldridge and Baker, 2003). (Christensen and Tilgner, 2004). Experiments contributed in showing After Poincaré's (1910) and Bullard's (1949) suggestions, Malkus that the flow geometry generated in a rotating and precessing (1963, 1968) proposed that the internal Earth's magnetic field could be spheroidal envelope filled with water, is similar to the flow in the maintained by the luni-solar precession, i.e. by a motion of the core outer core inferred from geomagnetic secular variation (Vanyo, 2004). relative to the mantle, able to generate frictions transferring mechan- Finally, numerical reconstructions of the dynamo effect of a precession- ical, or magnetic, energy into the conducting fluids of the outer core. driven flow in a spherical container (Tilgner, 2005) showed that i) Calculations then suggested that precession could produce only 10% of laminar and unstable flows maintain the dynamo; ii) for low ratios of the energy supposed to be required to maintain the geodynamo viscosity/geostrophic forces (i.e. low Ekman numbers), the dynamo (Rochester et al., 1975; Loper, 1975). predominantly relies on the flow components excited by instabilities; iii) the periods of motion are equal to the rotation period of the boundaries; iv) a magnetic dipole moment undergoes slow variations interrupted by reversals. Roberts and Wu (2005) gave the most synthetic and positive “ ⁎ Corresponding author. opinion on this issue: all that has been unequivocally established in E-mail address: [email protected] (N. Thouveny). the intervening 55 yr is that precession can in principle supply the 0012-821X/$ – see front matter © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2008.08.020 270 N. Thouveny et al. / Earth and Planetary Science Letters 275 (2008) 269–284 geodynamo with abundant power. The question of whether the observation for an “evidence for orbital forcing of the geomagnetic geodynamo draw on this power is still unanswered, though it seems field”. probable from the work of Tilgner (2005)”. A dominant 100 ka period was found in RPI records from the Pacific Attempts to extract information from paleomagnetic records started Ocean (Yokoyama and Yamazaki, 2000). The absence of this period in in the late 70s: using the protocol of Levi and Banerjee (1976), Kent and the normalizing parameter (IRM) record supported the “possibility of Opdyke (1977) constructed a relative paleointensity (RPI) record for the an external energy supply of the geodynamo variation through orbital last 700 ka by dividing the natural remanent magnetization (NRM) forcing or climate change”. This observation, initially limited to the last intensities by the anhysteretic remanent magnetization (ARM) inten- 700 ka, was extended to the last 2 Ma for inclination (Yamazaki and sities measured along a core. They interpreted an emerging 43 ka period Oda, 2002)andRPIvariations(Yokoyama et al., 2007). NRM as the sign of a modulation of a precession-driven dynamo by changes of inclination variation in the Equatorial band record reversals, excur- the Earth's axis tilt (obliquity) and noted that a future confirmation of sions, and paleosecular variation and have no reason to be biased by such observation (i.e. correlation between geomagnetic paleointensity lithological changes. The latter are moreover paced by the 41 ka, and and obliquity) should evidence the contribution of forces arising from not by the 100 ka, period in this time interval. the Earth's precession to the geodynamo. Considering the “good Fuller (2006) compared paleointensity records, excursions and evidence that long term climatic variations have been controlled at reversals with obliquity variations, over various time ranges and least in part by Earth's orbital parameters”, they added that “a reached radically different clues: 1) the strongest RPI minima of the correspondence between some component of climatic change and last 800 ka correlate with obliquity minima, 2) polarity intervals variations of the Earth's magnetic field could be expected”. The shorter than 100 ka occur at 30–40 ka periods, “marginally shorter suggestion that geomagnetic excursions could be related to global ice than the obliquity period”, 3) reversals preferentially occurred when volume and Earth's eccentricity (Doake,1977 and Rampino,1979) laid on the average amplitude of the obliquity is low, 4) the most recent non-normalized magnetic intensity records, which imposed a first bias. reversals occurred near the inflection point of the descent slope from Kent (1982) denounced the “apparent correlation of paleomagnetic obliquity maxima (verified for most of the reversals of the last 4 Ma intensity and climatic records in deep sea sediments resulting from a except the boundaries of the Olduvai event), 5) the last nine reversals pronounced dependence of NRM intensity on sediment composition” have a non-random phase relation to the obliquity signal, 6) the dating and concluded that “a weak positive correlation between the NRM/IRM of older reversals is not accurate enough: an error of 0.33% is sufficient ratio and CaCO3” can be “optimistically related to some geomagnetic– to destroy the relationship. Testing the relationship between the climatic dependence or more likely to an inadequacy in the normal- obliquity and eccentricity phases and the ages of reversals or ization by IRM to take into account fully the strong lithological effect on excursions, Xuan and Channell (2006) have confirmed that reversals the NRM”. Various strategies were then employed to attempt improving of the last 5 Ma preferentially occurred during decrease of the the reliability of RPI records. Selective criteria for the reliability of the maximum obliquity envelope. normalization by susceptibility, IRM and ARM were proposed (King et al., Other studies found no orbital