40Ar/39Ar chronology and paleomagnetism of Quaternary basaltic lavas from the Perşani Mountains (East Carpathians)

Quaternary volcanism in the Perşani Mountains forms an Na-alkali basaltic province inside the bend area of the Carpathians in the southeastern part of Europe. Previous K–Ar ages and paleomagnetic data reveal several transitional virtual geomagnetic poles, which were tentatively associated with the Cobb Mountain subchron and a Brunhes chron excursion. We report a new paleomagnetic and rock-magnetic study coupled with 40Ar/39Ar geochronology to better constrain the age of geomagnetic reversals or excursions that might be recorded and the timing of volcanism. Of the paleomagnetic directions obtained from sampled lava flows 4 are reversed polarity, 19 are normal polarity and 16 have transitional polarity. 40Ar/39Ar plateau ages determined from incremental heating experiments on groundmass indicate that two of the reversely magnetized lavas erupted at 1142 ± 41 and 800 ± 25 ka, four of the normally magnetized lavas erupted at 1060 ± 10, 1062 ± 24, 684 ± 21, and 683 ± 28 ka, and two transitionally magnetized lavas formed at 1221 ± 11 and 799 ± 21 ka. Both the new 40Ar/39Ar ages and the paleomagnetic data suggest at least five episodes of volcanic activity with the most active periods during the Jaramillo and Brunhes chrons. This results shows that the last phases of alkalic and calc-alkaline magmatism in the South-East Carpathians were contemporaneous. The age of the older transitionally magnetized lava flow is within error of recent unspiked K–Ar and astrochronologic ages for the reversal that defines the onset of the Cobb Mountain normal polarity subchron. The age of the younger transitional lava is similar to that of an excursion that preceded the Matuyama–Brunhes polarity reversal and which has come to be known as the Matuyama–Brunhes precursor. Omitting the excursion data, the dispersion of the virtual geomagnetic poles (around 19°) is larger than the expected value around 45°N from the global compilation, but closer to the value obtained only from the Time Averaged geomagnetic Field Initiative studies.