Apparent Polar Wander Path of India Since the Late Cretaceous
For several years, I have been working on creating one of the most detailed apparent polar wander paths (APWPs) using India as the type plate. The APWP is constructed from Indian paleomagnetic data and paleomagnetic data from other plates rotated into India's reference frame. For the interval from ~110 Ma up to the present, all the paleomagnetic data fit a small circle path defined by a paleomagnetic Euler pole (PEP). The path, when viewed as the past positions of the south paleomagnetic axis, roughly follows the 100°E meridian. Details about this APWP and its implications for true polar wander and the collision of India with Eurasia are given in Acton (1999) and a short synompsis is provided in the ODP Greatest Hits Volume 2: Acton (2002).



The location of the preferred PEP is at 14°S, 186°E, defining a small-circle South Pole APWP that is 77.8° angular distance away. The location of the PEP is consistent with the position of the reconstruction (stage) pole that describes the motion of the hotspots relative to India for the interval from 80 to 20 Ma. Furthermore, extrapolation of the PEP track back in time shows that it also provides an excellent fit to paleomagnetic data back to 120 Ma. At its young end, the track passes to within 2° of the South Pole. Hence, one small-circle track fits paleomagnetic data for a period spanning the past 120 m.y. Overall, the rate of APW along the PEP track can be well modeled with three rate changes at 73, 57, and 20 Ma over the 120 m.y. interval examined. The new India APWP places constraints on the timing of the collision of India with Eurasia and on details of true polar wander (TPW) as discussed in Acton (1999).

Other images from Acton (1999).