| Wojtas said: Well, i believe in the magnetic poles shift theory. It makes a lot of sense as magnetism has substantial power over living and dead objects. One thing to remeber is that if the poles were to shift very fast, we would probably experience earthquakes, since it would impact the way magma flows thus creating new rifts in the earth shell structure. Furthermore all of the living orgamisms that find their way based on magnetism (birds are a good example) will go crazy. |
Arg, no, no, no, the majority of this thread is paranoid but this is plain wrong. There is no correlation between changes in the Earth's magnetic field, from paleomagnetic records, and increased volcanism. Earthquakes do not leave as complete of records but again this seems highly unlikely as the majority of earthquakes have their sources in the crust with a minority of them occuring deep but never below the 660km depth. Yes, we do get magnetic field reversals but there is no reason to think it will cause earthquakes or volcanoes. The mantle of the Earth is not magma, it is solid with some form of elastic rheaology. It convects extremely slowly, on the order of centimeters per year which is driven primarily by temepreture so that a magnetic reversal should do next to nothing to change this. If your refering to the outer core, which is molten, then it is also incorrect as you have the casaulity backwards. The Earth's main field is created from the convection of the outer core, its reversal is likely related to a changed in that pattern of convection and still even with that we have no reason to suspect this will lead to increased volcanism or earthquakes because the outer core can not generate necessary stress for an earthquake, as it is liquid, and again we have no records of volcanism increasing from magnetic reversals.
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