Magnetostratigraphy of the loess-palaeosol key Palaeolithic section at Korolevo (Transcarpathia, W Ukraine)

A total of 213 oriented samples were taken for palaeomagnetic investigations from 11 m of loess-palaeosol sediments cropping out in the Korolevo new section (W Ukraine). As the background of our palaeomagnetic investigations we present the results of granulometric, chemical (content of humus and iron oxides), mineralogical (heavy minerals) and structural analyses of loess and soil deposits. The Matuyama–Brunhes boundary was found at a depth of 8.7 m, in the upper part of the illuvial horizon of the soil S7, the second well developed soil from the bottom. The bottom part of the oldest sediment studied here (relict palaeosol of Cambisol type?) was magnetized by the normal polarity geomagnetic field that can be correlated with the top of the Jaramillo subchron. The oldest cultural-chronological assemblages VII and VIII from the Korolevo site can be dated at the period between the B/M boundary (780 ka) and the top of the Jaramillo subchron (986 ka) but this conclusion must be supported by further, more extensive palaoemagnetic investigations of the bottom part of Quaternary deposits in different places in the Korolevo site. Three zones of the Korolevo section containing anomalous directions inside the normal polarity record of the Brunhes chron can be interpreted as possible places with destructed record of palaeomagnetic excursions.