A stacked record of relative paleointensity for the past 500 ka in the western equatorial Indian Ocean

High-quality relative paleointensity (RPI) is important for the study of Earth Interior and sediments dating. Many existing high-resolution RPI curves have been obtained from the North Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. New high-quality relative paleointensity (RPI) stacks are required for other regions, e.g., Indian Ocean, because the geomagnetic field is a global phenomenon. There has been no such stack reported from this region, and it is required to make efforts for constructing a new stack in such areas for global coverage of paleointensity data. A new stack will be useful as a chronology tool because the water depths of some regions are below the calcium carbonate compensation depth and oxygen isotope stratigraphy is usually not applicable. Recent studies have revealed that high-quality RPI records have great potential for a global correlation of marine sediments in the late Pleistocene. In this context, we conducted a paleomagnetic study on 4 sediment cores recovered from the western equatorial Indian Ocean. The purpose is to establish a regional RPI stack during the last 500 ka (WEIO-500) for global coverage of paleointensity data as well as a regional reference for paleointensity-assisted stratigraphy.