THE GILBERT GAUSS SEDIMENTARY GEOMAGNETIC REVERSAL RECORD FROM SOUTHERN SICILY/

A detailed paleomagnetic record of the Gilbert/Gauss reversal boundary in deep sea marls from southern Sicily shows that the remanence chara cterising the reversal is carried by a high-temperature magnetite comp onent A low-temperature component is intermediate ate between the high temperature component and a present-day overprint, suggesting that it is obscured by weathering. The actual reversal record is clearly affe cted by filtering caused by early diagenetic acquisition of a chemical remanent magnetisation (CRM). Intermediate VGPs show a general confin ement to a longitude over the Americas. More specifically, they are re stricted to two clusters, a less distinct one off SE South America, an d a very prominent one near NE North America. The remarkable coinciden ce with two Hoffmann clusters' [Hoffmann, 1992] suggests that even a C RM acquisition filter cannot entirely obscure long-lived transitional features.