Magnets

So, not exactly sure why this popped in my head, but I was wondering when I could expect the world to flip you could say. So I was looking around on the web... And I know exactly what made it pop in my head. Just remembered. I was chatting with a friend about intelligent design, and that made me think about things that might cause the extinction of the human race. So that made me think of Modern Marvels and then that lead to the magnetic field of the Earth. Go figure.

Okay, back to it. So I was looking around the web for info on the pole flip. Did you know that on average the poles change places once every 200,000 years? How do we know this, well, apparently cooled lava is the key. The iron in the lava rock aligns itself to the magnetic pols when it is cooling. That is our road map. And as far as the time, well, we all know that is easy to figure out if you have enough over time building up. So, on the average I guess we are over due for a flip. But from the studies we also know that the flip is very random in terms of when it happens. I would have to find that article again but I think we are in the 600,000's since last magnetic flip. Makes me wonder what we can expect.

So the magnetic north pole was first found in 1831 by James Ross. Since then it has been tracked cause we found out it moves. And apparently it is moving at a rate of 40km per year. What I find interesting is that this is not an indication of a flip. In fact it would seem that no one knows to what to expect. Just found another page that puts the average at 300,000 years as the average over time. We are currently in 780,000 year range according to this site (science.nasa.gov.) But not knowing what could happen of course has not stopped people from thinking about what might happen. "The Core" comes to mind.

So we have a theory about the mechanics of the Earth. Solid inner core with a liquid outer core. And they say the magnet force that surrounds the Earth is the result of the dynamo effect. Look it up. So that got me to thinking what happens during a flip? Are we screwed? Well, never fear, according to NASA that will not be the case. Although a compass may be useless we will still be protected from deadly space radiation. You can breath now.

I found this to be interesting and figured maybe others might as well. I guess we will have to wait for that comet or meteor to plow through the earth for some great and spectacular natural catastrophic event to be the end of man. Science is cool I think. So much great stuff to keep you wondering!