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Bad News for Earth's Magnetic Field

Posted by timothy on from the or-at-least-fans-of-it dept.

jabex writes "Scientific American's website has an article about the overdue magnetic field flip. According to research published in the journal Nature, it could take anywhere from 2000-10000 years to complete. That's a long time without a protective magnetic field."

1 of 102 comments (clear)

  1. no magnetic field, really? by Bastian · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I'm no geologist, but it seems strange to me that in the process of a magnetic field reversal the earth's magnetic field would just go away for a few thousand years. Wouldn't the field just rotate over time, so that the magnetic north pole continues to drift until it is near the geographic south pole?