Earth’s Magnetic Field’s Major Fault
Over these past Five years scientists have found evidence of changes to the earth’s magnetic field with the discovery of the South Atlantic Anomaly, a weakening of the field between Africa and South America where a large region of reduced magnetic intensity was observed forming a center of minimum intensity.
Now researchers are speculating if this weakening is a sign of a pole reversal on the way, where the North and South Poles switch places, with the last time this is believed to have happened Seven Hundred and Eighty Thousand years ago.
The magnetic field is vital for life on our planet, as it shields us from cosmic radiation and charged particles emitted from the sun.
Apparently this anomaly is wreaking havoc on satellites and other spacecraft flying through the area, with many experiencing technical malfunctions.
The discovery was made by a team at the European Space Agency (ESA) who pulled data from the agency’s Swarm constellation, which is a cluster of satellites.
The satellites are specifically designed to identify and measure the different magnetic signals that make up Earth’s magnetic field, allowing experts to spot areas that have weakened.
ESA has been studying the magnetic field since the end of 2013.
The mission is comprised of three identical satellites that provide high quality measurements of field in three different orbital planes.
Jürgen Matzka, from the German Research Center of Geo-sciences, said: ‘The new, eastern minimum of the South Atlantic Anomaly has appeared over the last decade and in recent years is developing vigorously.
‘We are very lucky to have the Swarm satellites in orbit to investigate the development of the South Atlantic Anomaly.
‘The challenge now is to understand the processes in Earth’s core driving these changes.’
The weakened field has been on the radar of experts for years — they know that it has lost nine percent of its intensity over the last 200 years.
An even larger area of weakness has recently developed between Africa and South America.
However, what is more puzzling is that is that the anomaly has grown and moved westward at a pace of around 12 mph.
In addition, the team found that in just the last five years a center of minimum intensity has formed southwest of Africa, suggesting the South Atlantic Anomaly could split into two separate cells.
The biggest impact of a magnetic field reversal will be on birds, turtles and other creatures that use the field to navigate.
North on a compass will also point to Antarctica rather than Canada.
One of the reasons scientists don’t know much about the magnetic history of the South Atlantic Anomaly region of Earth is because they don’t have enough archeomagnetic data — physical evidence of magnetism in Earth’s past, preserved in rocks.
Here’s the the gist of it, they don’t know if a pole flip happened in the past so it’s a guesstimate based on this can’t be the first time for something of this nature, otherwise the only other possible explanation is its unprecedented which means we’re left to navigate uncharted territory.
The team found the North Pole has been moving closer to Siberia at a frantic pace due to two writhing lobes of magnetic force in the Earth’s core, research has suggested.
It went from shifting nine miles at most to as much as 37 miles in a year from 1999 to 2005, suggests the study that was published this month.
‘In contrast, the south magnetic pole has barely moved much in the past 100 years as the flow of the outer core there is much more sedate.’
