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Science 12 September 1997:
Vol. 277. no. 5332, pp. 1642 - 1645
DOI: 10.1126/science.277.5332.1642
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Reports

Measurements of the Cretaceous Paleolatitude of Vancouver Island: Consistent with the Baja-British Columbia Hypothesis

Peter D. Ward, * José M. Hurtado, Joseph L. Kirschvink, Kenneth L. Verosub

A previously unsampled outcrop of gently dipping or flat-lying Upper Cretaceous sedimentary strata in the Vancouver Island region, which contains unaltered aragonitic mollusk fossils, yielded a stable remanent magnetization that is biostratigraphically consistent with Cretaceous magnetochrons 33R, 33N, and 32R. These results, characterized by shallow inclinations, indicate an Upper Cretaceous paleolatitude of about 25 ± 3 degrees north, which is equivalent to that of modern-day Baja California. These findings are consistent with the Baja-British Columbia hypothesis, which puts the Insular Superterrane well south of the Oregon-California border in the Late Cretaceous.

P. D. Ward, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
J. M. Hurtado, Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
J. L. Kirschvink, Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
K. L. Verosub, Department of Geology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed.

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