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The Leucite Hills Volcanic Field, southwest Wyoming comprises two dozen volcanic features including necks, flows, dikes, and plugs. It has been the focus of many petrologic studies as its volcanic and shallow intrusive rocks are one of the only surficial manifestations of ultrapotassic lamproite. We build on paleomagnetic findings of Sheriff and Shive (1980) by providing further paleomagnetic data from the Boars Tusk dike and Black Rock flows. We also characterize the magnetic mineral assemblage of these lamproites. Principal component analysis of alternating field (AF) and thermal demagnetization data indicate that the dike and breccias of Boars Tusk record a reversed magnetic polarity and the Black Rock lava records a normal polarity, both consistent with previous findings. This recording is typically carried by minerals with coercivities >15 mT and susceptibility measurements indicate magnetite, maghemite, and titanomagnetite as likely magnetic carriers. AF and thermal demagnetization experiments evince secondary magnetizations held by lower coercivity grains, likely caused by lightning strikes. 40Ar/39Ar incremental heating experiments from Boars Tusk and Black Rock give plateau ages of ∼ 2500 ka and ∼ 900 ka, respectively. Recent advances in the chronology of geomagnetic field reversals and excursions during the Quaternary permit integration of the Boars Tusk dike into the lower Matuyama chron, whereas the Black Rock lavas most probably record the Kamikatsura excursion. Notably, Black Rock records high inclinations that suggest the short-lived excursion achieved a full geomagnetic reversal, something not observed at other localities recording the Kamikatsura excursion. The Leucite Hills offer further opportunities to refine the Quaternary geomagnetic instability time scale (GITS), and to improve understanding of the eruptive and geomorphic evolution of this unusual volcanism. 

Abstract The Green River Formation of Wyoming, USA, is host to the world’s largest known lacustrine sodium carbonate deposits, which accumulated in a closed basin during the early Eocene greenhouse. Alkaline brines are hypothesized to have been delivered to ancient Gosiute Lake by the Aspen paleoriver that flowed from the Colorado Mineral Belt. To precisely trace fluvial provenance in the resulting deposits, we conducted X-ray fluorescence analyses and petrographic studies across a suite of well-dated sandstone marker beds of the Wilkins Peak Member of the Green River Formation. Principal component analysis reveals strong correlation among elemental abundances, grain composition, and sedimentary lithofacies. To isolate a detrital signal, elements least affected by authigenic minerals, weathering, and other processes were included in a principal component analysis, the results of which are consistent with petrographic sandstone modes and detrital zircon chronofacies of the basin. Sandstone marker beds formed during eccentricity-paced lacustrine lowstands and record the migration of fluvial distributary channel networks from multiple catchments around a migrating depocenter, including two major paleorivers. The depositional topography of these convergent fluvial fans would have inversely defined bathymetric lows during subsequent phases of lacustrine inundation, locations where trona could accumulate below a thermocline. Provenance mapping verifies fluvial connectivity to the Aspen paleoriver and to sources of alkalinity in the Colorado Mineral Belt across Wilkins Peak Member deposition, and shows that the greatest volumes of sediment were delivered from the Aspen paleoriver during deposition of marker beds A, B, D, and I, each of which were deposited coincident with prominent “hyperthermal” isotopic excursions documented in oceanic cores.