Empirical reconstruction of Earth‐Moon and Solar System dynamical parameters for the past 2.5 billion years from cyclostratigraphy

The chaotic behavior of the Solar System prevents the prediction of the precise evolution of the planetary secular frequencies. Here we use four cyclostratigraphic sequences, similar to 259 Ma Wujiaping Formation, similar to 455 Ma Pingliang Formation, similar to 655 Ma Datangpo Formation and similar to 2,465 Ma Dales Gorge Member, and Bayesian inversion to provide powerful geological constraints to this problem. The inversion provides constraining estimates for the Solar System fundamental secular frequencies g(1), g(2), g(3), g(4,) and g(5), and the Earth's precession rate k from 105.26 +/- 2.68 (2 sigma) arcseconds/year at similar to 2,465 Ma to 55.86 +/- 2.60 (2 sigma) arcseconds/year at similar to 259 Ma. Stochastic monotone interpolation enables the reconstruction of Earth-Moon distance from 2.5 billion years to the present. Calculation of tidal dissipation supports the ocean model before 1.4 Ga, but is outside the error range after similar to 1.8 Ga, suggesting lower tidal dissipation in the early Proterozoic Eon, and a possible high value in the early Paleozoic.