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Science 5 July 1996:
Vol. 273. no. 5271, pp. 100 - 104
DOI: 10.1126/science.273.5271.100
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Reports

Late Proterozoic and Paleozoic Tides, Retreat of the Moon, and Rotation of the Earth

C. P. Sonett, * E. P. Kvale, A. Zakharian, Marjorie A. Chan, T. M. Demko

The tidal rhythmites in the Proterozoic Big Cottonwood Formation (Utah, United States), the Neoproterozoic Elatina Formation of the Flinders Range (southern Australia), and the Lower Pennsylvanian Pottsville Formation (Alabama, United States) and Mansfield Formation (Indiana, United States) indicate that the rate of retreat of the lunar orbit is dxi /dt sim  k2 sin(2delta ) (where xi  is the Earth-moon radius vector, k2 is the tidal Love number, and delta  is the tidal lag angle) and that this rate has been approximately constant since the late Precambrian. When the contribution to tidal friction from the sun is taken into account, these data imply that the length of the terrestrial day 900 million years ago was sim 18 hours.

C. P. Sonett, Department of Planetary Sciences and Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.
E. P. Kvale, Indiana Geological Survey, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA.
A. Zakharian, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA.
M. A. Chan, Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA.
T. M. Demko, Department of Earth Resources, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80523, USA.
* To whom correspondence should be addressed.


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