Paleomagnetism of Aptian–Albian sections from the Northern Apennines (Italy): Implications for the 150–100 Ma apparent polar wander of Adria and Africa Sara Satolli a,b, ⁎, Jean Besse a , Fernando Calamita b a Laboratoire de Géomagnétisme et Paléomagnétisme, Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, France b Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra, Università “G. d'Annunzio” di Chieti-Pescara, Italy abstract article info Article history: Received 16 July 2008 Received in revised form 8 September 2008 Accepted 9 September 2008 Available online 23 October 2008 Editor: T. Spohn Keywords: magnetostratigraphy paleomagnetism APWP Aptian–Albian Africa Adria Italy We computed a new 120 to 100 Ma high-resolution Apparent Polar Wander Path (APWP) for Adria from magnetostratigraphic studies in the Northern Apennines (Italy). We analyzed 274 cores from three Early Aptian–Late Albian sections of the Marne a Fucoidi Fm., belonging to the sedimentary succession deposited above the Adria passive margin during Meso-Cenozoic time. To solve the problem of tectonic rotations induced during the Apennine orogenesis, we computed relative rotations between sections and realigned them into a common declination reference frame (Bosso, Italy). These new data were added to the previous 150–125 Ma segment computed from the same region [Satolli, S., Besse, J., Speranza, F., Calamita, F., 2007. New 125–150 Ma high-resolution Apparent Polar Wander Path for Adria from magnetostratigraphic sections in Umbria-Marche (Northern Apennines, Italy): Timing and duration of the global Jurassic–Cretaceous hairpin turn. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 257, 329–342. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2007.03.009.] to get a very high-resolution 100 to 150 Ma APWP for Adria. The comparison of our APWP with the African APWP segment of Besse and Courtillot computed with 10 Myr sliding window [Besse, J., Courtillot, V., 2002. Apparent and true polar wander and the geometry of the geomagnetic field over the last 200 Myr. J. Geophys. Res. 107. doi:10.1029/2000JB000050.] leads to the following conclusions: 1) our segment (after a 25° clockwise rotation of the Bosso reference frame) is in very good agreement with the African APWP, as shown by a very similar time evolution of inclinations and declinations, most often statistically indistinct; 2) this agreement vindicates our previous model of structural unit rotation for older periods [Satolli, S., Besse, J., Speranza, F., Calamita, F., 2007. New 125–150 Ma high- resolution Apparent Polar Wander Path for Adria from magnetostratigraphic sections in Umbria-Marche (Northern Apennines, Italy): Timing and duration of the global Jurassic–Cretaceous hairpin turn. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 257, 329–342. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2007.03.009.] 3) the concept of “synthetic” APWP construction is strongly validated; 4) the good agreement found strengthens the fact that Adria has been a promontory of Africa at the lithospheric level during Late Jurassic–Early Cretaceous (150–100 Ma), affected by tectonic rotations linked to the Apennines orogenic phases during Neogene; 5) our data evidence a possible ca. 105 Ma southward motion of Adria undetected from classical African APWPs. Finally, we have not found evidence for reversals interrupting the long normal Cretaceous superchron in our sections. © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction An accurate determination of Apparent Polar Wander Paths (APWPs) is necessary to constrain paleogeographic reconstructions at the level of accuracy now required by geodynamic investigations, from the study of mantle convection processes to the modeling of climatic changes at geological time scales. A primary limitation for the determination of APWPs is the partial or total lack of paleomagnetic data for certain periods. For this reason, some authors have constructed “composite” or “synthetic” APWPs, based on selected best data from major continents transferred using high-quality plate kinematic models onto a common single plate (e.g., Besse and Courtillot, 2002, referred as B&C02 hereinafter). The overall trans- ferred data set is then averaged in 10 or 20 Myr time windows, and transferred back in turn to each continent. This method gives good results, but the overall poor number of data (typically 200 selected poles for 200 Myr) leads to an inherent imprecision. As a result, small amplitude (≤ 10°) or rapid (≤ 10 Myr) APWP features are most often irresolvable. Moreover, the uncertainty concerning the age (or exact time window) of a large number of paleomagnetic studies in the literature is very often larger than 10 Myr and adds further complications. Magnetostratigraphic data may overcome this diffi- culty (Moreau et al., 2007; Satolli et al., 2007), but their use in order to Earth and Planetary Science Letters 276 (2008) 115–128 ⁎ Corresponding author. Laboratoire de Géomagnétisme et Paléomagnétisme, Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, 4 Place Jussieu, 75252 Paris Cedex05, France. Tel.: +33 1 44273273. E-mail address: satolli@ipgp.jussieu.fr (S. Satolli). 0012-821X/$ – see front matter © 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.epsl.2008.09.013 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Earth and Planetary Science Letters journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/epsl