Paleomagnetism of Late Quaternary Sediment from the Eastern Tyrrhenian Sea as a Chronologic Tool for Marine Geology Investigations

Three piston cores (C1067, C1201, C1202) from the continental shelf and slope in the Salerno Gulf and Cilento offshore preserve small-scale, long-term change of Earth's past magnetic field (Palaeo Secular Variation) between about 115 ka B.P and the present. The cores overlap as follows: C1201 spans the most recent 25 ka and overlaps C1067 and C1202, which respectively cover much of the last approximately 115 ka B.P. Cores C1067 and C1202 lack the record from about 20 ka to about 11 ka B.P., an absence that is due to slope erosional processes. The palaeomagnetic field behaviour, when correlated to curves of global relative palaeomagnetic field intensity and dated records of PSV for western Europe and Great Britain, coupled with discreet tephrochronology and geochronology dating (C14), allow us to compile a chronology for the combined cores. The resulting chronology for the first most recent 44 ka has application for placing time constraints on the marine geology and stratigraphy of the margin of the eastern Tyrrhenian Sea. So far, catastrophic events such as large-scale submarine slumps, volcanic eruptions, turbidite deposition, and abrupt changes in sedimentation rate have been documented. In particular, the changes in sedimentation rate seem to be linked to global rapid sea-level pulses and climatic events that induced concurrent reduction and/or abundance in the sediment supply from the adjacent coastal margin.