Relative paleointensity stack during the last 500 ka in the western equatorial Indian Ocean

Relative paleointensity (RPI) records can reflect the evolution of the Earth’s axial dipole field and provide a signal suitable for global stratigraphic correlation.  Marine sediments have the potential to preserve continuous records of paleointensity, although with relative variations. Numerous RPI records have been obtained thus far, and global RPI stacks and the axial dipole field model PADM2M that integrate RPI records with absolute paleointensities from volcanic rocks have been proposed. However, current RPI records are mostly from the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, especially in the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere, and less RPI records are from the Indian Ocean, in particular of those low latitude areas, which limits the sediment dating and the geomagnetic evolution studies in these regions. Therefore, it is required to make efforts for constructing new RPI records in such areas for global coverage of paleointensity data. We carried out systematic paleomagnetic studies on four sediment cores recovered from the Western Equatorial Indian Ocean (WEIO). Four RPI records were synthesized for the equatorial Indian ocean, which will provide a reference for the establishment of the chronological framework in these areas.