Geomagnetism

{{Geology}}{{cquote|Magnetism, as you recall from physics class, is a powerful force that causes certain items to be attracted to refrigerators.|||Dave Barry<ref>[http://www.just-one-liners.com/science/27495 "Magnetism, as you recall from physics class, is a powerful force that causes certain items to be attracted to refrigerators." Just-One-Liners.com. n.d. Web. 04 June 2014.]</ref>}}
'''Geomagnetism''' refers to the [[Earth]]'s magnetic field, which extends from the Earth's interior to where it meets the solar wind. Roughly speaking, it is the field of a gigantic bar magnet currently tilted about 10 degrees off the [[Rotation of the Earth|Earth's rotational axis]]. Unlike a bar magnet, however, the Earth's magnetic field changes over time, because it is generated by a geodynamo (in Earth's case, the motion of molten iron alloys in its outer core).

Relatedly, '''geomagnetic reversals''' are shifts in [[Earth|Earth's]] [[magnet|magnetic field]] in which the positions of the magnetic north (positive) and south (negative) are switched.<ref name="GeoMag">[http://www.geomag.bgs.ac.uk/education/reversals.html "Reversals: Magnetic Flip." Natural Environment Research Council. n.d. Web. 04 June 2014.]</ref><ref name="PWNMS">[http://platetectonics.pwnet.org/story_tectonics/theory/magnetic_striping.htm "Magnetic Striping." Prince William Network. Our Changing Continent. n.d. Web. 28 June 2014.]</ref> In modern times, a reversal has usually occurred every 50,000 to 800,000 years, with an average of 200,000 years.<ref name="GeoMag"/><ref name="NatGeo">[http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/pf/58784286.html Roach, John. "Earth's Magnetic Field Is Fading." National Geographic Society. 09 September 2004. Web. 04 June 2014.]</ref> A plethora of scientific evidence supports the existence of geomagnetic reversals.

Due to their long timeframe, several [[young earth creationist]]s (YECs) have attempted to [[Denialism|deny]] the standard scientific picture of geomagnetic reversals. Early creationists simply denied that geomagnetic reversals had occurred; later creationists, facing the solid evidence for their existence, have been forced to retreat to [[Goddidit]].

==Evidence==
Geomagnetism and geomagnetic reversals are supported by several threads of evidence.

===Magnetic seafloor stripes===
[[File:Oceanic.Stripe.Magnetic.Anomalies.Scheme.svg|thumb|left|alt=Graphic showing the seafloor spreading process.|The seafloor spreading process. [http://pubs.usgs.gov/publications/graphics/Fig7.gif Source] ]]
[[File:Earth seafloor crust age 1996.gif|thumb|left|alt=Chart showing Earth's seafloor crust ages.|Earth's seafloor crust ages. [http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/image/crustageposter.gif Source] ]]

During the 1950s-70s, scientists learned that the ocean seafloor is patterned by stripes of magnetism, with alternating sections magnetized north, south, north, etc.<ref name="PWNMS"/><ref name="About">[http://geography.about.com/od/physicalgeography/a/magnetic.htm Rosenberg, Matt. "Magnetic Reversal." About.com. n.d. Web. 05 June 2014.]</ref><ref name="NOAA">[http://www.oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/edu/learning/2_midocean_ridges/activities/seafloor_spreading.html "Seafloor Spreading Activity." NOAA. 12 February 2013. Web. 28 June 2014.]</ref><ref name="CD741">[http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD741.html Isaac, Mark. "Claim CD741." Talk.Origins Archive. 13 February 2004. Web. 28 June 2014.]</ref><ref name="SCC">Laurie R. Godfrey (1983). "[[Scientists Confront Creationism]]". W. W. Norton & Company, Canada. Pages 36-37. ISBN 0393301540.</ref><ref group=note>Here's the full text of this portion of Scientists Confront Creationism: {{quotebox|We do not need to assume that the drifting of the continents has been at a constant rate over the past 200 million years, for we have a magnetic record of their movements. The molten rock that oozes up in the Mid-Atlantic Ridge is partly magnetized by the magnetic field of the Earth, and as the rock cools that magnetism is frozen into it. We can measure the magnetic polarity of the rocks in the sea floor with delicate magnetometers towed on the ocean surface. This would, of course, not be interesting if it were not that the magnetic field of the Earth reverses itself every half million or so years; in fact, in the past 76 million years, it has reversed itself 171 times. Ocean floor rocks close to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge carry the magnetism of the present field, but those several miles away on either side have the reversed magnetic polarity of the field of the earth half a million years ago, and those still farther have the polarity of the still earlier field, and so on. Over recent geological times the alternating polarity of the magnetism in the ocean for has reversed many times in consort with the changing field of the Earth. Moreover, this pattern of field reversals is consistently reproduced in the ocean floor in widely separated regions of the Earth. But how do we know the dates of the magnetic field reversals in the ocean floor? The age of any reversal can be estimated by extrapolation along the sea-floor magnetic strips, assuming constant spreading rates, once a reliable chronology is constructed for a portion of the strip. Such a reliable chronology has been constructed for the most recent segment &mdash; up to 5 million years ago. It is based on direct [[radiometric dating]] of sequences of lava flows.}}</ref>

This occurs because magma contains iron grains (specifically magnetite<ref name="PWNMS"/>) that orient themselves towards the magnetic north pole, much like a compass. When lava solidifies, the iron grains are no longer able to move freely, and are permanently aligned along the direction of existing magnetic fields. Thus, when magma from oceanic trenches hardens into seafloor, it will maintain its magnetic alignment.<ref name="PWNMS"/><ref name="About"/><ref name="NOAA"/><ref name="SCC"/> Because stripes of the same number of magnetic reversals away from oceanic trenches are uniform in age, it is clear that this is a global event, which can only be explained by something like a geomagnetic reversal.

The theory of [[seafloor spreading]] is supported by the existence of symmetrical (in age, polarity, and distance from mid-ocean trenches) magnetic stripes in the rock of the ocean floor.<ref name="NOAA"/><ref name="CD741"/><ref name="SCC"/> No other theory can explain why these stripes exist at all ''or'' their symmetry, making this strong evidence for seafloor spreading. This, in turn, supports the existence of geomagnetic reversals.

===Geodynamo theory===
[[File:3D Geomag Sim.gif|thumb|right|alt=3D simulation of the Earth's magnetism.|3D simulation of the Earth's magnetism. [http://www.es.ucsc.edu/~glatz/geodynamo.html Source]]]
If the Earth's magnetic field was freely decaying (nothing added to its strength, so it slowly died), then it would decay in about 20,000 years.<ref name=Glatz /> Since we know that the magnetic field has existed for at least 3,000,000,000 years, a theory is needed to explain how the Earth's field regenerates that also can explain the existence of geomagnetic reversals, local fluctuations in the geomagnetic field, and various other magnetic phenomena.

This led to the rise of the geodynamo theory. The geodynamo theory has two central ideas:

#The Earth's core is filled with moving, liquid metal that is constantly flowing. Heavier and cooler metals settle onto the Earth's core, while lighter and hotter metals rise, making a gigantic {{wpl|convection current||,}} which, due to its metallic contents, gives rise to a magnetic field.
#The Earth spins on its axis, which puts {{wpl|Coriolis forces}} onto the core, which forces it to spin and to shear through the previous magnetic field, which generates a new one, which keeps the field as a whole alive.

One model of the geodynamo theory, the Glatzmaier-Roberts model, was simulated for more than 300,000 (simulated) years.<ref name=Glatz /> The simulated field matched the observed field well. Notably:

#The simulated field's strength matched the observed field's strength.
#The simulated field's westward pole drift matched the observed field's westward pole drift in direction.
#The simulated field had polar reversals in ~100,000 year intervals that matched the observed field's reversal timeframe. 

This model's simulation also has an explanation for why the geomagnetic field reverses in wildly varying intervals. As Glatzmaier states:<ref name=Glatz />

{{quotebox|Our solution shows how convection in the fluid outer core is continually trying to reverse the field but that the solid inner core inhibits magnetic reversals because the field in the inner core can only change on the much longer time scale of diffusion. Only once in many attempts is a reversal successful, which is probably the reason why the times between reversals of the Earth's field are long and randomly distributed.}}

While geodynamo theory is not yet perfect, it very accurately describes the Earth's magnetic field and has no real competitors.

==Impacts on life==
Because the strength of the geomagnetic field is currently declining, it has become the center of some [[woo]],<ref name="NatGeo"/> which was especially prominent (and silly) in the [[2012 apocalypse|leadup to 2012]].  It is believed that a reversal or excursion (basically a reversal, with associated decrease of strength, minus the polar flip) may be imminent in the next couple of thousand of years or so.<ref name="GeoMag"/><ref name="NatGeo"/><ref name="About"/><ref name="NOAA"/>

Reversals ''do'' have an impact. For example, during the most recent reversal, the Earth's magnetic field reduced to 5% of its original strength.<ref name="SDIce">[http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/10/121016084936.htm "Ice age polarity reversal was global event: Extremely brief reversal of geomagnetic field, climate variability, and super volcano." Helmholtz Centre Potsdam. 16 October 2012. Web. 04 June 2014.]</ref> A small amount of Earth's atmosphere, usually protected by the Earth's geomagnetic field, can be lost to space due to radioactive bombardment from the sun.<ref>http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X14001629</ref>

On the whole, however, reversals appear to be relatively harmless to living beings.<ref name="GeoMag"/> Considering that around 170<ref name="About"/> to 171<ref name="SCC"/> reversals are documented in the last 76 million years alone<ref name="SCC"/>, reversals don't seem to pose much of an extinction-level threat.

===Magnetic apocalypse?===
Some [[crank]]s, including [[Robert W. Felix]], believe that geomagnetic reversals cause [[ice age]]s<ref>http://iceagenow.info/</ref> and extinctions that lead to "evolutionary leaps".<ref>http://www.evolutionaryleaps.com/</ref> While both are possible, they are also rather unlikely. As pointed out [[#Impacts|above]], geomagnetic reversals don't seem to have impacted life on Earth much in the past 76 million years.

===Pole shift?===
{{main|Pole shift}}
A geomagnetic reversal is ''not'' a pole shift. In a geomagnetic reversal, the magnetic poles are flipped. In a pole shift, the planet itself is flipped — the Arctic located where the Antarctic is, and vice versa.

=="Impact theory"==
In "Impact theory", it has been proposed that very large meteor impacts may cause or may contribute to geomagnetic reversals,<ref>http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/GL013i011p01177/abstract</ref> because:

#Very large meteor impacts throw up enough dust to cover most of the Earth's surface from the sun
#If enough dust is thrown up, the Earth's surface water may freeze
#Frozen water flows differently than liquid water, which affects the spinning of the earth's crust and mantle
#The spinning of the crust and mantle is what generates the geodynamo, and changing it will cause new patterns to form

This theory has essentially ''no'' scientific consensus, but is pretty badass.

==Old Earth==
{{main|Evidence against a recent creation}}
The frequency at which reversals occur varies greatly, but they usually happen once every 50,000 to 800,000 years, and a reversal isn't a discrete ''event'', but rather a process which takes thousands of years.<ref name=GeoMag /><ref name=NatGeo /> This fact is obviously inconsistent with the notion of a young Earth. There's further evidence against a recent creation. As Scientists Confront Creationism notes:<ref name=SCC />

{{quotebox|The age of any reversal can be estimated by extrapolation along the sea-floor magnetic strips, assuming constant spreading rates, once a reliable chronology is constructed for a portion of the strip. Such a reliable chronology has been constructed for the most recent segment &mdash; up to 5 million years ago.}}

And, beyond that, around 171 reversals are geologically documented, which would make the Earth at least 8.5 million years old.<ref name="SCC"/>

==Creationist interpretations==
Geomagnetic reversals, given their known larger-than-10,000-years timeframe and their support for much-slower-than-10,000-years seafloor spreading and [[plate tectonics]], present a problem for young earth creationism. The Solution: 
Accept that creationism is flawed
 Deny, deny, deny!

===Decay only===
[[File:Geomagnetism from 10000 years BP.jpg|thumb|right|alt=Geomagnetic dipole moment from 10000 years before present.|Estimated dipole moment (basically, the strength of the magnetic field between the two poles) of the Earth from 10000 years before present. [http://gondwanaresearch.com/field.jpg Source]]][[File:Dipole Moment for the Last 100 Years.jpg|thumb|right|alt=Geomagnetic dipole moment from 100 years before present.|From 1900 to 2000. Even excluding the above graph, this looks less like exponential decay and lot more like ''linear'' decay[http://www.geomag.bgs.ac.uk/education/reversals.html#3 Source]—especially considering that this is a "gee whiz" graph (meaning, the vertical axis starts higher than zero to make the change look more dramatic than it actually is.]]
Some [[Young Earth creationism|young earth creationists]], such as [[Walt Brown]],<ref name="CD741"/> [[Thomas Barnes]],<ref name="ApoPre">[http://www.apologeticspress.org/apcontent.aspx?category=9&article=1119 Major, Trevor. "The Earth's Young Magnetic Field." Apologetics Press. 1993. Web. 04 June 2014.]</ref><ref name="CD701">[http://talkorigins.org/indexcc/CD/CD701.html Isaac, Mark. "Claim CD701." Talk.Origins Archive. 12 May 2006. Web. 28 June 2014.]</ref><ref name="HowGood">[http://talkorigins.org/faqs/hovind/howgood-yea.html#proof11 Matson, Dave. "How Good Are Those Young-Earth Arguments?" Talk.Origins Archive. 2002. Web. 03 July 2014.]</ref><ref name=Barnes>[[Thomas Barnes|Barnes, Thomas G.]], 1982 (Aug.) ''[http://www.icr.org/article/young-age-for-moon-earth/ Young age for the moon and earth.]'' Impact 110.</ref> [[Kent Hovind]],<ref name="HowGood"/><ref name="PSADM">[https://pseudoastro.wordpress.com/2011/08/09/does-earths-decaying-magnetic-field-mean-it-was-created-6000-years-ago/ Robbins, Stuart. "Does Earth's Decaying Magnetic Field Mean It Was Created 6,000 Years Ago?". 09 August 2011. Web. 28 June 2014.]</ref> , the [[ICR]],<ref>http://www.icr.org/article/earths-magnetic-field/</ref> and [[CMI]]'s [[101 evidences for a young age of the Earth and the universe#|101 evidences for a young age of the Earth and the universe]] (numbers [[101 evidences for a young age of the Earth and the universe#49|49]], [[101 evidences for a young age of the Earth and the universe#69|69]], [[101 evidences for a young age of the Earth and the universe#70|70]], [[101 evidences for a young age of the Earth and the universe#71|71]], and [[101 evidences for a young age of the Earth and the universe#81|81]]) argue that the geomagnetic field has only (or with slight variation in speed) decayed for the past 6-10,000 years; geomagnetic reversals would contradict this worldview. Depending on the level of [[denialism]], many creationists either deny that the data exists or consider them to be past fluctuations in the overall high strength of the geomagnetic field.<ref name="CD741"/>

Why? Because, based on the decline of the magnetic field in the past century or two, they believe that the magnetic field has been in constant, exponential decline, forever.<ref name="CD701"/><ref name="HowGood"/> Extrapolating exponentially backwards, YECs conclude that the Earth cannot be more than 20,000 years old, because that would imply that the Earth's magnetic field would be impossibly large.<ref name="HowGood"/>

This assertion has numerous problems.

First, this idea assumes that current decay rates of the Earth's magnetic field have remained constant and exponential for all time, which can be seen in the lower image on the right. Evidence contradicts this assumption. As shown in the upper image on the right, the geomagnetic field frequently both increases and decreases in strength, with no clear trend either way, which directly contradicts the predictions of this model.<ref name="CD701"/> Further, as shown earlier, during geomagnetic reversals and excursions, the strength of the field significantly decreases;<ref name="GeoMag"/><ref name="NatGeo"/><ref name="About"/><ref name="NOAA"/> during the most recent reversal, the Earth's magnetic field reduced to 5% of its original strength.<ref name="SDIce"/> The Earth's geomagnetic field is believed to be currently undergoing a reversal or an excursion, which would account for the decrease of the strength of the field.<ref name="GeoMag"/><ref name="NatGeo"/><ref name="About"/><ref name="NOAA"/> This means that the decay rate cannot be assumed to be, in fact, constant, and thus the proposed timeframe of this model cannot be accepted.

Second, this model relies on an obsolete model of the Earth's geomagnetism. In order for it to make sense, it must assume that the source of geomagnetism is a free electrical current in the Earth's molten center. (If we accept this, then 20,000 years ''is'' the time in which the Earth's magnetic field would have decayed away.<ref name=Glatz>http://www.es.ucsc.edu/~glatz/geodynamo.html</ref>) This model has no way to explain any increase of the strength of the geomagnetic field, let alone both increases and decreases,<ref name="CD701"/> while the currently accepted dynamo theory can.<ref name="CD701"/> This outdated idea has numerous similar problems. Brent Dalrymple puts it:<ref>1992. "Can Earth be Dated from Decay of its Magnetic Field?" NCSE Reports, Vol.12, No.1 (Spring 1992), pp.16-17 National Center for Science Education, P.O. Box 9477, Berkeley, CA 94709-0477.</ref>

{{quotebox|The dynamo theory has gained near-universal acceptance because it is the only proposed mechanism that can explain all the observed features of the Earth's magnetic field. In contrast, Barnes' hypothesis of a freely decaying field cannot explain the existence, configuration, movement, or changes in the nondipole field, the fluctuations in the dipole moment, the reversals in field polarity, or the documentation in the geologic record of the continued existence of the field for more than three billion years.}}

In short: the idea is so terrible that fellow Young-Earth Creationist Russel Humphreys presents arguments ''against'' a pure free-decay model.<ref name=ICR />

===Local reversals===
[[Thomas Barnes]] also advanced the claim that, instead of ''global'' geomagnetic reversals, which require a long time and repudiate a YEC model of the Universe, the reversals that we see were actually ''local'' geomagnetic variations, which can occur quite quickly and allow room for a YEC universe.<ref name="ApoPre" />

Evidence flatly contradicts this claim. The ages of magnetic stripes on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean<ref name="About"/><ref name="CD741"/><ref name="SCC"/><ref name="PWNSS">[http://platetectonics.pwnet.org/story_tectonics/theory/seafloor_spreading.htm "Seafloor Spreading." Prince William Network. Our Changing Continent. n.d. Web. 28 February 2014.]</ref> and all over the world<ref name="SCC"/><ref name="PWNSS"/> match. This would only occur if all of these locations had experienced the same magnetic field at the same time, which would be incredibly unlikely if magnetic reversals did not occur on a global scale. This indicates that reversals are not local fluctuations, but global events.

===Rapid reversals===
{{cquote|Unfortunately, the free-decay theory as it stands now does not explain numerous past reversals. One would think that young-earth creationists would try to modify the free-decay theory; instead we have tended to dismiss the reversal data[.]|||Russell Humphreys<ref group=note>Quotemined? Yes, marginally. Still true? Hell yes.</ref><ref name=ICR>https://www.icr.org/i/pdf/technical/Reversals-of-Earths-Magnetic-Field-During-the-Genesis-Flood.pdf</ref>}}
Modern YECs, such as [[Russell Humphreys]]<ref name="ApoPre"/> and CMI (101 Evidences, numbers [[101 evidences for a young age of the Earth and the universe#46|46]] and [[101 evidences for a young age of the Earth and the universe#47|47]]) generally accept that geomagnetic reversals exist and have occurred.

Humphreys realizes that reversals, with their long (1000+ year) time duration, contradict a YEC model. Specifically, Humphreys notes that about 50 reversals are recorded in layers containing fossils, which creationists think were caused in 1 year by the [[global flood]], which means that a rate of 1 reversal per week is necessary for a YEC model to work. Humphreys then works out a ''totally'' unassailable model for how this could have happened. Its key points are as follows:

#Rapid reversals aren't ''completely'' impossible.
#[[Goddidit|God reversed the field 50 times during the Flood]].

… And that's it. Until science is willing to accept "And then a miracles happens" as a plausible explanation for something, this theory is pretty much worthless.

==See also==
[[Science]]:
*[[Magnetism]]
*[[Plate tectonics]]
*[[Fun:Scientific Geoterrapinism|Scientific Geoterrapinism]]
[[Pseudoscience]]:
*[[Pole shift]]
*[[Crust displacement]]
*[[Flat Earth]]
*[[Hollow Earth]]
*[[Expanding Earth]]
*[[Geocentrism]]
[[Creationism|Creationist]] pseudoscience:
*[[Global flood]]
*[[Hydroplate theory]]
*[[Catastrophic plate tectonics]]

==External links==
*[http://deeptow.whoi.edu/gpts.html Images of geomagnetic timescales back to 80 million years ago.]
*[http://www.geomag.bgs.ac.uk/education/earthmag.html In-depth overview of geomagnetism]
*{{wpa|Earth's magnetic field}}
*{{wpa|Geomagnetic reversal}}

==Notes==
{{reflist|group="note"}}

==References==
{{reflist}}

{{crebox}}

[[Category:Silly "Earth" theories]]
[[Category:Creationist claims]]
[[Category:Evidence against a recent creation]]

Categories: Silly "Earth" theories, Creationist claims, Evidence against a recent creation