40Ar/39Ar dating and preliminary paleointensity determination on a single lava flow from Chifeng, Inner Mongolia

A precise 40Ar/39Ar age and paleointensity data for the Cretaceous lava flow from Chifeng, southern Inner Mongolia, northeastern China are presented in this study. Detailed rock magnetic investigations including the variation of magnetization with temperature, low temperature susceptibility and hysteresis loops show that pseudo single domain (PSD) grain size high-Ti titanomagnetite is the main magnetic mineral in the studied lava flow. Both the microwave and double heating Thellier techniques were used to determine the paleointensity, yielding mean flow paleointensities of 15.6 ± 3.2 μT and 23.9 ± 8.0 μT, respectively. However, the paleointensity results using the microwave technique are of higher quality (mean q = 12 for microwave compared to q = 2 for Thellier) and yield higher internal consistency for the flow mean (21% standard deviation about the mean for microwave compared to 34% for Thellier). The microwave paleointensity result, 15.6 ± 3.2 μT is therefore deemed the more reliable estimate for the paleointensity of the Niutoushan lava flow. 40Ar/39Ar age determination on the lava flow is 106.42 ± 0.48 Ma (2σ, relative to GA-1550 biotite: 98.79 ± 0.96 Ma). Combining our 40Ar/39Ar dating and paleointensity results with other published paleointensity data suggests that the intensity of the Earth's magnetic field during the middle Cretaceous normal superchron (CNS) was weak, but variable throughout the whole CNS.