Anomaly timescales for the last 90 million years, derived from marine magnetic profiles and published prior to mid‐1979, are summarized, illustrated for comparison, and critically reviewed. A revised timescale is constructed using calibration points which fix the ages of anomalies 2.3′, 5.5, 24, and 29. An equation is presented for converting K‐Ar dates that is consistent with the recent adoption of new decay and abundance constants. The calibration points used in the revised timescale are so converted, as are the boundary ages of geologic epochs within the range of the timescale.

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We develop methods for the modeling and inversion of the power‐density spectrum from magnetic anomaly data assuming that the crustal magnetic field is caused by an ensemble of vertical‐sided and uniformly magnetized prisms. The solution of the forward problem is achieved in the wavenumber domain, where a synthetic spectrum is given by the product of the mathematical expectations of single‐valued functions that describe depth, thickness, and horizontal dimensions of prisms in the ensemble. We use Gaussian and uniform distributions to describe the ensemble and provide a variety of functions from which different statistical models can be obtained. The solution of the inverse problem is achieved iteratively, starting from an initial set of model parameters. It is based on the ridge‐regression algorithm, and its usefulness is assessed in a number of examples with numeric, synthetic and real data spectra. The methods are first tested on the spectrum obtained from a simple artificial magnetic anomaly and on the artificial spectrum caused by an ensemble of source bodies and are found to be capable of recovering the source parameters. Next, the methods are applied to marine magnetic data from a survey offshore of the Yucatán Peninsula, Mexico. The results of this last application are consistent with the crustal structure observed at Chicxulub hole.

Global Positioning System (GPS) data from experiments conducted in 1985 and 1989 in the southern Gulf of California, Mexico, allow a determination of relative motion between the Pacific and North American plates. The data indicate motion of Cabo San Lucas on the Pacific plate relative to North America at a rate of 47±7 mrn/yr and azimuth of 57±6° west of north (1σ errors), equivalent within uncertainties to the NUVEL‐1 global plate motion model.

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