MEASUREMENTS OF THE CRETACEOUS PALEOLATITUDE OF VANCOUVER-ISLAND - CONSISTENT WITH THE BAJA BRITISH-COLUMBIA HYPOTHESIS

A previously unsampled outcrop of gently dipping or fiat-lying Upper C retaceous sedimentary strata in the Vancouver Island region, which con tains unaltered aragonitic mollusk fossils, yielded a stable remanent magnetization that is biostratigraphically consistent with Cretaceous magnetochrons 33R, 33N, and 32R. These results, characterized by shall ow inclinations, indicate an Upper Cretaceous paleolatitude of about 2 5 +/- 3 degrees north, which is equivalent to that of modern-day Baja California. These findings are consistent with the Baja-British Columb ia hypothesis, which puts the Insular Superterrane well south of the O regon-California border in the Late Cretaceous.