Paleomagnetics

Paleomagnetics



Magnetism is soooo freakin übercool. And people are rightfully fascinated by it. Particularly the magnetic fields entangled in and around our home planet - The Earth.

I have the deepest respect for magnetic fields and how hard it is to understand them, even if the laws of physics seem reasonably simple. :-)

Now, the magnetic fields and their development on this planet is important for our understanding of topic like climate change. Need I say more about how any theory in this field will be controversial to at least one group of people...? :-)

Hank Campbell is writing a very understandable introduction to paleomagnetism. Read the whole thing and note this:

"...Why does it matter? If we don't know how continents moved in the past and how they massed to form supercontinents, we can't accurately model ocean currents, global average temperatures and wind patterns - which means models of ancient climate would be a lot less made up than they are right now...."

And what do you know? I am explaining how GRAVITY plays a crucial role in understanding ocean currents in my latest episode (October) of A Green Space - A Green Earth.

These two aspect of the Earth, magnetism and gravity, illustrate one of my favorite points - the system Earth is extremely complicated.