The Earth’s magnetic field may not be about to turn around after all. (IS IN)
The appearance of a mysterious area in the South Atlantic where the strength of the geomagnetic field is rapidly declining has led some to speculate that the Earth’s magnetic poles are about to “spin”.
This would cause the Earth’s magnetic field to change from north to south, and some believe it could bring chaos to our wired world.
But a study, based on evidence dating back 9,000 years, has suggested that, after all, there may be no investment in the charts, and that the “anomaly” that triggered speculation will fade. .
The Earth’s magnetic field acts as an invisible shield against the life-threatening environment in space and the solar winds that would otherwise sweep the atmosphere.
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But the magnetic field is not stable and polarity reversals occur approximately every 200,000 years, which means that the magnetic north and south poles exchange places.
Over the past 180 years, the strength of the Earth’s magnetic field has decreased by about 10%.
Leading author Andreas Nilsson, a geologist at Lund University, said: the corresponding variations in the strength of the Earth.Earth’s magnetic field.
This area, where satellites have malfunctioned several times due to exposure to highly charged particles from the sun, is called the South Atlantic Anomaly.
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Leading author Andreas Nilsson, a geologist at Lund University, said: the corresponding variations in the Earth’s magnetic field strength “.
The results are based on analyzes of burned archaeological artifacts, volcanic samples, and sediment drilling cores, all of which carry information about the Earth’s magnetic field.
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These include clay pots that have warmed to more than 580 degrees Celsius, volcanic lava that has solidified, and sediment that has been deposited in lakes or the sea.
Objects act as time capsules and carry information about the magnetic field of the past.
With sensitive instruments, researchers have been able to measure these magnetizations and recreate the direction and strength of the magnetic field at specific places and times.
“We have developed a new modeling technique that connects these indirect observations of different time periods and places in a global reconstruction of the magnetic field over the last 9,000 years,” Nilsson said.
“Based on the similarities with the recreated anomalies, we predict that the South Atlantic anomaly is likely to disappear in the next 300 years and that the Earth is not heading for a polarity reversal.”
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By studying how the magnetic field has changed, researchers can learn more about the processes underlying the Earth’s core that generate the field.
The new model can also be used to date archaeological and geological records, by comparing measured and modeled variations in the magnetic field.
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