Mysterious Anomaly Under Africa Is Weakening Earth's Magnetic Field
Sciencealert.com warned recently: "Earth's magnetic field doesn't just give us our north and south poles; it's also what protects us from solar winds and cosmic radiation – but this invisible force field is rapidly weakening, to the point scientists think it could actually flip, with our magnetic poles reversing." And if the magnetic poles flip, evidence suggests we will have a crustal displacement - a catastrophic rotational pole shift, with earthquakes and tsunamis of biblical proportion.
"The region that concerns scientists the most at the moment is called the South Atlantic Anomaly – a huge expanse of the field stretching from Chile to Zimbabwe.
The field is so weak within the anomaly that it's hazardous for Earth's satellites to enter it, because the additional radiation it's letting through could disrupt their electronics."
"The conventional idea of pole reversals is that they can start anywhere in the core – but the latest findings suggest what happens in the magnetic field above us is tied to phenomena at special places in the core-mantle boundary."
This means that what happens in space - magnetic field fluctuations from solar or galactic cycles - affects the polarization of the Earth's core, most clearly at the boundary of the outer core. "This dense region, existing in between the hot liquid iron of Earth's outer core and the stiffer, cooler mantle, is suggested to somehow be disturbing the iron that helps generate Earth's magnetic field."
"However, it's simply too early to say for certain whether this behaviour will lead to a full pole reversal."
- The findings were originally reported in Geophysical Review Letters.