Late Cenozoic paleomagnetism of West Siberian Plate

On the basis of combined (paleomagnetic, lithological, and paleontological) data, a scale of Neogene geomagnetic polarity is proposed for the West Siberian Plate (WSP). It comprises 17 large orthozones of normal and reversed polarity. The scale was compiled by comparing and correlating the Neogene key sections of the Kulunda and Baraba plains, Irtysh regions between Omsk and Pavlodar and near Tara, and Ob’ region near Tomsk. The reliability of paleomagnetic data is confirmed by component analysis of natural remanent magnetization and by a possibility of determining its primary component. In the studied Neogene rocks this is a high-temperature component related to magnetite, hematite, and maghemite, which decays at 420–675 °C. In the period from Early Miocene to Late Pliocene, the Late Cenozoic geomagnetic field reconstructed from NRM vectors for WSP rocks of Neogene age experienced 17 reversals (at the level of orthozone boundaries), with eight regimes of normal polarity and nine regimes of reversed polarity. Comparison of the WSP Neogene scale with Berggren’s scale provided absolute age boundaries of the Late Cenozoic series on the WSP regional stratigraphic scale. The 23.8 Ma boundary between the Oligocene and Miocene is recorded in the regional scale at the sole of the Lyamin beds of the Abrosimovka Formation, at the bottom of Orthochron R₁N₁aq, and the Miocene-Pliocene 5.2 Ma boundary (Chron C3r), in the Novaya Stanitsa Formation (top of the Cherlak beds).