This post summarizes a publication in the journal Nature (note paywall): Biggin, A.J., Piispa, E.J., Pesonen, L.J., Holme, R., Paterson, G.A., Veikkolainen, T., and Tauxe, L., 2015, Palaeomagnetic field intensity variations suggest Mesoproterozoic inner-core nucleation: Nature, v. 526, no. 7572, p. 245–248, doi: 10.1038/nature15523. Earlier this month, an article about the age of Earth’s inner core made […]
history of geoscience
Reversals, Part 2
I’m finally getting back to the blog after about a week of frantic magnetometry (we discovered a bug in our magnetometer software, because of which we had to measure lots of stuff all over again!) and report-writing. Here is another in my reverse-color series on magnetic reversals.
Basics of Magnetism 4: Reversals Part 1
Earth has a magnetic field, which is what keeps your compass lined up with the North Pole [1]. The Earth’s outer core generates that magnetic field. You may have heard before that Earth’s magnetic field has, in the past, switched its North and South Poles. This is true, and kind of amazing and mysterious, but useful […]
