Implications of Colorado Plateau Coring Project (CPCP) 1 & 2 to astrochronology, the Geological Orrery, and empirical mapping of Solar System Chaos

Abstract:

Analysis of the Late Triassic-Early Jurassic 22 Myr Newark-Hartford (N-H) lacustrine cored record revealed that the values for secular fundamental frequencies of the inner planets of the Solar System can be recovered (1) from geological records despite the 60 Myr limit imposed by chaotic diffusion (2). However, U-Pb age control was limited to 600 kyr around the Triassic-Jurassic boundary where there are igneous units (3). A major goal of the 2013 CPCP-1 was to test the N-H astrochronology by coring the Chinle Formation at Petrified Forest National Park (AZ, USA) where multiple U-Pb datable detrital zircon -bearing layers (4) can be correlated to the N-H record by paleomagnetic polarity stratigraphy (5). Results of the CPCP-1 project demonstrate the fidelity of the N-H astrochronology (6) to ~215 Ma and showed that the 405 kyr Venus- Jupiter (g2-g5) eccentricity cycle was consistent as predicted by theory (2) into the Triassic (7), with the combined approaches termed the Geological Orrery (1).

Basic goals of the proposed CPCP-2 related to the Geological Orrery and astrochronology are to resolve alternative age models for the earlier Late Triassic (8) and to extend the combination of a paleomagnetic polarity stratigraphy and zircon-based geochronology from the Early Triassic and to Middle Jurassic in multiple coreholes. This has special relevance to two projects furthering the Geological Orrery and related projects calibrating deep time secular orbital frequencies: 1) the ongoing JET (9) project will recover a detailed astrochronology of the Early Jurassic in the marine UK sequence; and 2) the nascent Junggar Basin EMCT (NW China) project (10) proposed to recover an obliquity dominated record at Arctic paleolatitudes, completing the parameters needed to fully resolve inner planet secular orbital perihelion and nodal precession for this ~50 Myr interval.

1 Olsen+ 2018 PNAS 116:10664; 2 Laskar+ 2011 A&A 532:1; 3 Blackburn+ 2013 Science 340:941; 4 Ramezani+ 2011 GSA Bull 123:2142; 5 Olsen+ 2018 Sci Drill 24:15; 6 Kent+ 2017 E Sci Rev 166:153; 7 Kent+ 2018 PNAS 115:6153; 8 Rasmussen+ 2020 GSA Bull 10.1130/B35485.1; 9 Hesselbo SP+ 2018 Geophys Res Abst 20:9916; 10 www.icdp-online.org/projects/world/north-and-central-america/colorado-2-usa/.