Synchronizing Rock Clocks of Earth History

Abstract

Calibration of the geological time scale is achieved by independent radioisotopic and astronomical dating, but these techniques yield discrepancies of ∼1.0% or more, limiting our ability to reconstruct Earth history. To overcome this fundamental setback, we compared astronomical and 40 Ar/ 39 Ar ages of tephras in marine deposits in Morocco to calibrate the age of Fish Canyon sanidine, the most widely used standard in 40 Ar/ 39 Ar geochronology. This calibration results in a more precise older age of 28.201 ± 0.046 million years ago (Ma) and reduces the 40 Ar/ 39 Ar method's absolute uncertainty from ∼2.5 to 0.25%. In addition, this calibration provides tight constraints for the astronomical tuning of pre-Neogene successions, resulting in a mutually consistent age of ∼65.95 Ma for the Cretaceous/Tertiary boundary.