This work presents the results of a magnetostratigraphic survey performed on 1150 m of core material from three sites within the Heidelberg Basin. The cores intersect one of the thickest continuous accumulations of Plio-Pleistocene fluvial sediments in western Central Europe. The resultant magnetic polarity stratigraphy includes every Quaternary polarity chron, thereby providing constant age constraint down to the Gauss-Matuyama Boundary (2.58 Ma). Older deposits cannot be unequivocally dated; instead, various age-depth models are discussed. We base our chronostratigraphic interpretation of the successions tentatively on three assumptions. A) The accommodation was almost constant over time. B) Hiatuses in the duration of subchrons (on the order of 0.2 Myr) may occur, and the actual step-like age-depth relationship is best depicted as a smooth curve with almost constant slope. C) Long chrons and subchrons have a higher preservation potential than shorter polarity intervals. The stratigraphic scenarios with the highest probability - based upon our three assumptions- lead to minimum ages of > 5.235 Ma and > 4.187 Ma for the oldest parts of the Viernheim and Heidelberg cores, respectively. Consequently, this study provides the first consistent magnetic polarity stratigraphy for quasi-continuous sequences of late Neogene to Quaternary fluvial sediments in the Rhine Basin and generally in western central Europe. This methodologically independent chronostratigraphy supplies an urgently required temporal model for on-going tectonic and sedimentological studies and the reconstruction of the palaeoclimate since the Pliocene in this part of Europe.
This dataset contains the paleomagnetic supplementary material to the article Kelder et al. (subm.), which presents a magnetostratigraphic correlation of Late Miocene lacustrine sediments based on multi-polarity greigite. The multi-polarity is visible in most thermal paleomagnetic results (Zijderveld diagrams) by antipodal high and medium temperature components, while only one magnetic component was visible in the alternating field demagnetization diagrams. Based on this complex behavior, a tailored demagnetization approach was developed to allow for reliable magnetostratigraphic dating of lacustrine sediments.The dataset includes demagnetization data from four drill cores located nearby Paks, Hungary. They were not oriented, meaning that only the inclination could be used for paleomagnetism. The measurements took place at the Paleomagnetic Laboratory Fort Hoofddijk in Utrecht University, The Netherlands. For details about the methodology the reader is referred to the methodology in Kelder et al. (subm).Three types of data are distinguished:• Thermal demagnetization results (.th files)• Alternating field demagnetization results (.af files).• Interpreted magnetic vectors for demagnetization files (.dir files)The .th, .af. and .dir files can be viewed with Notepad or similar programs, and analyzed via the Open Source platform Paleomagnetism.org (Koymans et al., 2016). The .dir files only exist for the cores PAET-30 and PAET-34, because these were interpreted in detail, while the material of the other cores (PAET-26, 27) were mainly used for rock magnetic purposes.Finally, an overview of the data files, abbreviations and sample codes is provided in the data description file.
This dataset contains paleomagnetic data used to create the magnetostratigraphy of the Ugljevik section in Bosnia and Herzegovina (thesis by Karin Sant, 2018). It is the only outcrop known with the early, middle and upper Badenian sediments exposed in a continuous section.The dataset includes thermal demagnetization (.th files) and alternating field demagnetization (.af files) data from several partial sections (UG08, UG11 and UG13) together forming the full section (correlation figure is attached). The measurements took place at the Paleomagnetic Laboratory Fort Hoofddijk in Utrecht University, The Netherlands. The displayed AF measurements were performed in the per component setting. For further details about the methodology the reader is referred to the methodology in the thesis of K. Sant (2018).The .th and .af. files can be viewed with Notepad or similar programs, and analyzed via the Open Source platform Paleomagnetism.org: http://paleomagnetism.org/ (Koymans et al., 2016). An overview of the data files, abbreviation and sample codes is provided in the data description file.