North vs. South

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,220
I dread to think what could result if the poles do flip and only go halfway so somewhere around the equator becomes north and the other side becomes south. Now that would be interesting.
If I remember well, some studies pointed out that when the poles flipped it happened within a period of a couple of decades. So geologically speaking it's happened in a flash. But those two decades in particular will be unstable, magnetically speaking. My biggest concern would be the temporary loss (or weakening) of the earth's magnetic shield against the solar wind.

And yes, the almost unanimous consensus among geologist has been derived from geological records worldwide, and they do account for seismic activity and continental drift, among other things.
 

MrAl

Joined Jun 17, 2014
11,396
Apparently it is possible to detect magnetic polarity in some rock formations when they cooled from a liquid state and this has been used to explain possible "flips" in the magnetic poles.
My problem is wether the apparent flips in the rocks isn't from huge earthquake and seismic activity instead. We have a cave where I live that has dinosaur footprints. Not unusual . you say! But when i was shown them and asked where, "There, up on the ceiling of the cave". I had this vision of dinos laying on their backs making footprints on the ceiling chuckling to themselves "Let 'em work this out".
I dread to think what could result if the poles do flip and only go halfway so somewhere around the equator becomes north and the other side becomes south. Now that would be interesting.
Well if we see dino footprints on the ceiling we would assume that they got there some way other than dinos walking on the ceiling. So we have no problem using common sense there so we should not have a problem with magnetic properties measured in core samples especially if they form a pattern that is very unlikely to be made in some other way.
The studies done are very extensive, i cant even begin to outline the sophistication and care that does into that. Entire areas are mapped out as to various properties magnetic only one. It's amazing really. If they are wrong we cant do anything about it but we usually accept some things as fact even though we cant go back in time to check it out. We go with the most reasonable idea in many areas of life.
The only way to really change that is to do an independent study and see if you can contradict the previous findings.
 

shortbus

Joined Sep 30, 2009
10,045
We have a cave where I live that has dinosaur footprints. Not unusual . you say! But when i was shown them and asked where, "There, up on the ceiling of the cave". I had this vision of dinos laying on their backs making footprints on the ceiling chuckling to themselves "Let 'em work this out".
I immediately thought of this -
 

killivolt

Joined Jan 10, 2010
835
I immediately thought of this -
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...d-flip-poles-spinning-magnet-alanna-mitchell/
We know that the Earth’s poles have reversed hundreds of times. It’s a dynamic system inside the outer core and it has to reverse at times because that’s just part of the way it works. We know it’s done this most recently 780,000 years ago, so there are people who say it’s overdue. We know that the core is becoming increasingly volatile. The North magnetic pole is absolutelyrunning through the Northern Hemisphere at 55 kilometers a year to the northwest. That’s an indicator that something unusual is happening inside the core. We also know that the dipole is weakening fairly dramatically. If you look at satellite imagery, you can see that part of the magnetic field has already reversed in the Southern Hemisphere. This is something called the South Atlantic Anomaly. We know that that “reversed flux patch,” as scientists call it, is moving to the West and that it’s doubled in size in the last 60 years, so it now covers about 20 percent of the planet’s surface.

Does that tell us that a reversal is at hand? Scientists simply do not have enough information to make that conclusion. What they say is that it’s incontrovertible the poles will reverse again at some point. But they don’t know whether this is the beginning of it because they just don’t have enough information.

The consequences for life on Earth are potentially devastating. One scientist I spoke to, Daniel Baker, of the University of Colorado, who is an expert in radiation from the sun and how that affects our planet, says there’s no question in his mind that parts of the planet will become uninhabitable. But we can’t predict which those are going to be. What he means is that extra ultraviolet radiation that is damaging to human tissue and can cause mutations will hit the planet because we won’t have the magnetic shield to protect us.
kv
 

joeyd999

Joined Jun 6, 2011
5,237
The consequences for life on Earth are potentially devastating. One scientist I spoke to, Daniel Baker, of the University of Colorado, who is an expert in radiation from the sun and how that affects our planet, says there’s no question in his mind that parts of the planet will become uninhabitable. But we can’t predict which those are going to be. What he means is that extra ultraviolet radiation that is damaging to human tissue and can cause mutations will hit the planet because we won’t have the magnetic shield to protect us.
So, IOW, we don't need to worry about catastrophic AGW?
 

cmartinez

Joined Jan 17, 2007
8,220
Is there a Dictionary for Acronyms? Because we can invent them all day, till we just use some symbol to the extent we all are just going backward not forward. I know is funny but really?

kv
I was just teasing Joey because like you, I hadn't the faintest idea what he meant... but he's quite familiar with the acronym that I used ... :D
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
29,979
That's just it, what natural materials. I took some geology and paleontology in college and the paleontology indicates times of drastic changes in flora and fauna, but what indicates magnetic changes?
One of the things that is used as an indicator is the magnetic properties of certain rocks that have been heated and cooled. Above a certain temperature some of the constituents orient themselves with the Earth's magnetic field and when the rock cools that orientation gets frozen into position. The orientation can then be measured today to tell what direction the field was at that time. The trick is that you have to know the orientation of the rock back then to the rock today, and in any given location that is hard to say. But you take measurements from all over the world and the local changes in orientation tend to average out and the dominant orientation becomes apparent. You also have to be able to determine the time at which the rock last cooled below the critical temperature, but there are a number of ways to do that. There are also ways to estimate what the strength of the magnetic field was at that time, too.
 

killivolt

Joined Jan 10, 2010
835
One of the things that is used as an indicator is the magnetic properties of certain rocks that have been heated and cooled. Above a certain temperature some of the constituents orient themselves with the Earth's magnetic field and when the rock cools that orientation gets frozen into position. The orientation can then be measured today to tell what direction the field was at that time. The trick is that you have to know the orientation of the rock back then to the rock today, and in any given location that is hard to say. But you take measurements from all over the world and the local changes in orientation tend to average out and the dominant orientation becomes apparent. You also have to be able to determine the time at which the rock last cooled below the critical temperature, but there are a number of ways to do that. There are also ways to estimate what the strength of the magnetic field was at that time, too.
From a basic understanding, why is Temperature so connected to Mag forces? This is so far out from what is normal to what is Empirical for Earths history in my history taught. I thought we stood on dirt which held degrees of Mag north, then it changed to an Earth with degrees changing from North to South? Time is the a true indicator, you don't know till you know it seems.

kv
 

WBahn

Joined Mar 31, 2012
29,979
From a basic understanding, why is Temperature so connected to Mag forces? This is so far out from what is normal to what is Empirical for Earths history in my history taught. I thought we stood on dirt which held degrees of Mag north, then it changed to an Earth with degrees changing from North to South? Time is the a true indicator, you don't know till you know it seems.

kv
I'm not really sure what you are trying to say here, but I'll try to address what I can based on just your first sentence.

Imagine suspending a bunch of magnetized needles in a container of water and freezing it. Now set the container in a random location. If you look at the needles in this block of ice, they would tell you nothing about the orientation of the Earth's magnetic field at that location at that time. Now raise the temperature enough to melt the ice and let it refreeze. Now if you examine the needles they will tell you something about the orientation of the Earth's magnetic field at that location at the time that the water last froze, assuming that the container hasn't been moved in the meantime.
 
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