


It is known that Earth’s magnetic field has flipped many times throughout the planet’s history. Its dipole magnetic field remains about the same intensity for thousands to millions of years, but for incompletely known reasons it occasionally weakens (such is the case now) and, presumably over a few thousand years, reverses direction. A new study, however, shows that the final stage - a sudden 180-degree flip - can happen within a human lifetime.

The new study was done by a team of scientists from Italy, France and USA and it demonstrates that the last magnetic reversal of Earth's poles which happened some 786 000 years ago actually happened very quickly, in less than 100 years.

The discovery comes shortly after ESA's "Swarm" satellite array revealed that the intensity of Earth’s magnetic field is decreasing 10 times faster than normal, decreasing in strength about 5 percent a decade rather than 5 percent a century.


And since Earth’s magnetic field protects life from energetic particles from the Sun and cosmic rays, both of which can cause genetic mutations, a weakening or temporary loss of the field before a permanent reversal could increase cancer rates. The danger to life would be even greater if flips were preceded by long periods of unstable magnetic behavior.




Dating ash deposits from windward volcanoes


Leonardo Sagnotti, standing, and coauthor Giancarlo Scardia collecting a sample for paleomagnetic analysis.



Because the lake sediments were deposited at a high and steady rate over a 10 000-year period, the team was able to interpolate the date of the layer showing the magnetic reversal, called the Matuyama-Brunhes transition, at approximately 786 000 years ago. This date is far more precise than that from previous studies, which placed the reversal between 770 000 and 795 000 years ago.



Unstable magnetic field preceded 180-degree flip



The magnetic record the Italian-led team obtained shows that the sudden 180-degree flip of the field was preceded by a period of instability that spanned more than 6 000 years. The instability included two intervals of low magnetic field strength that lasted about 2 000 years each. Rapid changes in field orientations may have occurred within the first interval of low strength.



Source: UC Berkeley


  • "Extremely rapid directional change during Matuyama-Brunhes geomagnetic polarity reversal" - Leonardo Sagnotti, Giancarlo Scardia, Biagio Giaccio, Joseph C. Liddicoat, Sebastien Nomade, Paul R. Renne and Courtney J. Sprain - Geophys. J. Int. (November, 2014) 199(2): 1110-1124. - doi: 10.1093/gji/ggu287

Read more:

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Featured image credit: SWEED


Bethe Rose 4 years ago

Has anyone compared these findings with Edgar Cayce, ("The Sleeping Prophet")?

katesisco 6 years ago

Looking at this very incomplete record one may posit that Sol, our sun, is the cause and has been weakening since its inception as a magnetar. wiki informs that no theory is substantiated nor can periodicity be confirmed or linked. SWARM is hoped to produce info.
Since the Flagaran field volcanoes of Italy erupted 41,000 after a global brief reversal at 41,000, it would be informative to know if Toba at 79,000 was immediately after another small global reversal.

jesse 6 years ago

has anyone thought about the fact that 786000 years is about how long its been since yellowstone last erupted .

Defiant 6 years ago

I'm not saying this pole-reversal can't happen...because I have no clue. However...when I was in high school (1990), I had a pal whose father was into this stuff. He had us believing the pole-shift was coming in 1990...1991...1992...1993...and then I just realized he wasn't as informed as he thought he was. He STILL thinks the shift is coming...

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