Paleomagnetism of Cretaceous Pacific Seamounts revisited

The paleomagnetism of Cretaceous Pacific seamounts is reexamined. Herein techniques for nonuniform magnetic modeling are applied to determine paleomagnetic pole positions and their associated confidence limits. Modeling techniques are presented for reconstruction of both uniform and nonuniform components of the seamount magnetization. The uniform component yields an estimate of the paleomagnetic pole position, and the nonuniform component accounts for irregularities in the seamount magnetization. A seminorm minimization approach constructs maximally uniform magnetizations and is used to represent seamount interiors. A statistical modeling approach constructs random nonuniform magnetizations and is used to determine the confidence limits associated with each pole position. Mean paleopoles are calculated for groups of seamounts, including their associated error bounds. The mean paleopole for seven reliably dated Upper Cretaceous seamounts is located close to the position predicted by Pacific‐hotspot relative motion. The paleopole for five seamounts with Cretaceous minimum dates is located west of the hotspotpredicted apparent polar wander path and may represent a Lower Cretaceous or Upper Jurassic pole.