The earth can change its magnetic poles during the life of a modern person. This sensational statement was made by a group of scientists from Italy, USA, France.
During inversion (change in the direction of the Earth's magnetic field in the geological history of the planet - ed.), The north and south magnetic poles change places. Until now, it was believed that it lasts several thousand years. The last time such an epoch-making event for the Earth happened was about 780 thousand years ago. This means that homo sapiens did not find him, because he appeared about 250 thousand years ago.
The change of poles is one of the favorite subjects of lovers of universal disasters, scenarios of the end of the world. They are associated with the Flood, the disappearance of Atlantis, the death of dinosaurs, etc. However, scientists have always reassured: a polarity reversal is a very long-term business, these changes during the life of one generation are so small that they will not affect it in any way. Therefore, the new statement of scientists is like snow on our head: the poles will jump by historical standards almost instantly.
This conclusion was made on the basis of the argon-argon method of dating bottom sediments on a dry lake located among the Apennine mountains to the east of Rome. Scientists, frankly, were lucky, they found well-preserved lines of an ancient magnetic field. The find amazed specialists: “The pole reversal happened very quickly, probably in less than 100 years,” said Professor Paul Renn of the University of California.
“Honestly, it’s hard to imagine how the poles could be re-magnetized in such a short time,” commented Valery Petrov, Deputy Director of the Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, Ionosphere and Radio Wave Propagation of the Russian Academy of Sciences, PhD in Physics and Mathematics. - After all, this phenomenon is due to the fact that the direction of magma, consisting of liquid metals, changes in the body of the Earth. It is this huge mass that creates the magnetic field. It is very inertial and is hardly capable of changing the direction of movement in such a short time. And in general it is not entirely clear how, with an accuracy of 100 years, one can estimate the phenomena that took place almost a million years ago.
It should be noted that paleomagnetologists have built a calendar of reversals for 3.5 billion years. It turned out that they occur quite regularly, 3-8 times per million years. Therefore, the current pause of almost 800 thousand years is alarming scientists. According to Petrov, there are already signs of an imminent pole hop. For example, this is a decrease in the strength of the Earth's magnetic fields over the past 400 years. In addition, the distribution of the magnetic field lines has changed. The picture is similar to the one corresponding to the preparation stage of the inversion.
How dangerous is the jump of the poles for us? There are many different points of view. Pessimists, of course, predict disaster. In particular, they talk about the flux of radiation that will rush to the Earth, which has lost its magnetic field for a long time. After all, it is the magnetic shield that protects all living things from deadly cosmic radiation.
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Optimists argue that hundreds of reversals have occurred in the Earth's geological history, but no evidence has been found for their connection to mass extinctions and natural disasters. In addition, the biosphere is able to very quickly adapt to a variety of cataclysms, and the inversion can last for quite a long time, so there is more than enough time to prepare for changes.
However, everyone is unanimous on one thing. The modern world is far from what it was hundreds of thousands of years ago: man gave rise to many problems that made our world fragile, easily vulnerable and extremely unstable. This is a man-made technosphere. The jump of the poles will lead to the destruction of communication systems, which means that the Internet, satellites, navigation and many other electronic systems will fail.
Valery Petrov believes that even if it suddenly turns out that a change of poles can seriously threaten earthlings, the current level of knowledge allows you to find a control over such a jump. “In principle, science understands how to do this,” says the scientist. - It is necessary to create an artificial magnetic field around the Earth by installing a giant superconductor along the equator and letting current into it. Of course, purely technical difficulties may arise, but I think a person will solve them."