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Earth history

Sediments to planetary motion

Nature volume 409, pages 991–992 (2001)Cite this article

Celestial mechanics has long been used as an aid for interpreting geological records. The compliment is being repaid through analysis of Mediterranean sediments.

Theories about the variation in Earth's orbit have proved helpful in setting the chronology for geological records of climate. But the reverse can also be true — such records can aid astronomers in computing Earth's orbital parameters at times in the remote past. That is the aim of Lourens et al., as they describe on page 1029 of this issue1. They have taken advantage of an exceptional sediment record, which can be related to insolation (the amount of solar radiation reaching Earth's upper atmosphere). They come to certain conclusions about the planet's rotational history over the past three million years, and create an astronomical timescale to be used in further research.

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  1. Institut d'Astronomie et de Géophysique G. Lemaître, Université Catholique de Louvain, 2 Chemin du Cyclotron, Louvain-la-Neuve, B1348, Belgium

    Marie-France Loutre

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  1. Marie-France Loutre
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Correspondence to Marie-France Loutre.

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Loutre, MF. Sediments to planetary motion. Nature 409, 991–992 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35059192

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