{"id":2552,"date":"2015-10-23T16:24:25","date_gmt":"2015-10-23T21:24:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=2552"},"modified":"2015-10-23T16:24:25","modified_gmt":"2015-10-23T21:24:25","slug":"that-big-magnetic-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2015\/10\/23\/that-big-magnetic-field\/","title":{"rendered":"That Big Magnetic Field"},"content":{"rendered":"

ExtremeTech <\/b><\/i>reported<\/a> a year ago on the anticipated flip of Earth’s magnetic field:<\/p>\n

But the Earth\u2019s magnetic field is shifting<\/em>. New satellite data from the ESA shows that the Earth\u2019s magnetic field is weakening 10 times faster than we previously thought \u2014 an indicator that scientists believe is a precursor to a geomagnetic reversal<\/em>.\u00a0At the time, there was nothing to worry about \u2014 previous geological records suggested that a\u00a0geomagnetic reversal occurs over thousands of years. Now, however, a new study has analyzed rocks from the previous flip \u2014 the\u00a0Matuyama-Brunhes magnetic reversal of 786,000 years ago \u2014 and found that the process completed in under 100 years<\/a>. [doi:\u00a0<\/a>10.1093\/gji\/ggu287<\/a>]<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now archaeology has data to contribute.\u00a0 Samir S. Patel in Archaeology Magazine<\/b><\/i> (Sept\/October, 2015) reports on a byproduct <\/a>of the research:<\/p>\n

During the Iron Age, people [in southern Africa] would, perhaps because of a bad harvest, ritually \u201ccleanse\u201d their villages by burning them down. The fires burned hot enough to melt magnetic materials in the clay. When those materials cooled and solidified, they were remagnetized by the magnetic field, recording its intensity and direction at that moment.<\/p>\n

Southern Africa lies within the South Atlantic Anomaly, a particularly weak patch in the magnetic field, larger than the United States. If it grows large enough, according to University of Rochester geophysicist John Tarduno, it could trigger a reversal of the poles. Understanding how the magnetic field, especially in southern Africa, has changed over time might help scientists better comprehend these processes, since there has not been much good historical data on the southern magnetic field. Because of Iron Age superstition, Tarduno and his colleagues now have a record of the anomaly for between 1,600 and 1,000 years ago.<\/p>\n

The findings show that during the Iron Age, the magnetic field was as it is today: weakening, with a big southern dent.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ExtremeTech reported a year ago on the anticipated flip of Earth’s magnetic field: But the Earth\u2019s magnetic field is shifting. New satellite data from the ESA shows that the Earth\u2019s magnetic field is weakening 10 times faster than we previously thought \u2014 an indicator that scientists believe is a precursor \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2552"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2554,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2552\/revisions\/2554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}