FRESH (FRontline Earth Science researcH) @ St Andrews

The Pulse of Earth Processes

13:00-17:30, Friday 16 March 2012 / Irvine Lecture Theatre, Irvine Building

Interrogating rocks at annual to decadal timescales in the Precambrian: novel algorithms and
exceptional samples

Tim Raub (University of St Andrews, UK)

Email: timraub@st-andrews.ac.uk

Spectral analysis of geological time series generally use variations of Fourier or wavelet transform signal
processing methods to discern periodic system responses in context of an inherently noisy background.
Although mathematically rigorous, both sinusoid (Fourier) and wavelet-based decompositions tend to
produce spectral artifacts (bleeding, aliasing, detrending and normalizing loss-of-information,
interpolation for requisite normal data spacing). In worst-case scenarios, these methods can fail to identify
periodicities that really do exist, and they are capable of inferring power to artificial modes. These
problems occur most often when the data series in question is truly the result of a regular process that
naturally varies in period; and when system responses are nonlinear, leading to variable signal amplitude
between successive events. These sorts of nonlinear, quasi-periodic processes dominate the real world and
the geologic record.

A new, adaptive algorithm for decomposing data series into "intrinsic mode functions" has been proposed
and gained widespread use in engineering, signal processing, atmospheric science, and seismology. It is
equally well-suited for sedimentary and biological data series. This algorithm, "Ensemble Empirical
Mode Decomposition" (EEMD) (Huang et al., 1998; Huang and Wu, 2008) is not mathematically
rigourous, and its utility depends in part upon prior assumption; and in part on whether or not it produces
interpretively useful and predictively testable outcomes. However the intrinsic mode functions that it
produces will mathematically reconstruct to produce the exact, original data series; and they are in turn
suitable for a modified Hilbert-Transform analysis which can reveal the extent to which they are real
versus artifactual.

This talk will sketch the method for this algorithm and present EEMD results for two exceptional
Precambrian rocks. The older unit, Firstbrook Member rhythmites from ~2.2 Ga Gowganda Formation of
Superior Craton's Huronian Basin, is commonly interpreted as recording a long series of annual,
proglacial varves. Whereas Fourier analysis picks out only a ~decadal oscillation, EEMD reveals a multi-
annual oscillation to be equally powerful to the decadal oscillation, and it quantifies the natural variability
in both mode periods. EEMD also hints at longer-period oscillations that may reflect long solar cycles
influencing Palaeoproterozoic deglacial climate, and it quantifies at least a quarter of the data series as
stochastic noise. A younger, ~1.1 Ga oscillatory stromatolite from Tieling Formation, North China Block
yields impersistent ~14-band cyclicity to conventional Fourier analysis. EEMD reveals multiple modes
which are at apparent odds with conventional interpretation of the stromatolite oscillating its orientation
as a heliotropic biological response.

Key references: Hughes, G. B., Giegengack, R., and Kritikos, H. N., 2003, Modern spectral climate
patterns in rhythmically deposited argillites of the Gowganda Formation (Early Proterozoic), southern
Ontario, Canada: Earth and Planetary Science Letters, v. 207, no. 1-4, p. 13-22.

Huang, N. E., Shen, Z., Long, S. R., Wu, M. L. C., Shih, H. H., Zheng, Q. N., Yen, N. C., Tung, C. C.,
and Liu, H. H., 1998, The empirical mode decomposition and the Hilbert spectrum for nonlinear and non-
stationary time series analysis: Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series a-Mathematical
Physical and Engineering Sciences, v. 454, no. 1971, p. 903-995

Huang, N. E., and Wu, Z. H., 2008, A review on Hilbert-Huang transform: method and its applications to
geophysical studies: Reviews of Geophysics, v. 46, no. 2.