Arctic deep-sea sediments often record intervals of negative inclination of natural remanence that are tens of centimeters thick, implying magnetic excursions with durations of tens of thousand years that far exceed excursion durations estimated elsewhere, and the lack of tight age control usually provides excessive freedom in the labeling of Arctic excursions. Fortuitous variations in sedimentation rate have been invoked to explain the “amplified” excursions. Alternating field demagnetization of natural remanent magnetization (NRM) of sediment...