The orientation of the Earth's magnetic field has changed many times throughout the history of our planet. It is not a phenomenon that occurs from one day to the next – it can present the same intensity for hundreds of thousands or even millions of years – but for reasons that are still unknown, it sometimes weakens and ends up reversing.
Now, an international team of researchers from different institutions has found that the process, however, can occur very quickly , even in less than a century, a geological sigh.
As indicated in the Geophysical Journal International, that was precisely what happened the last time a geomagnetic reversal took place, 786,000 years ago. Geophysicists point out that we could experience another such tipping over the next few centuries , as the Earth's magnetic field is currently decreasing about ten times faster than is considered normal.
Although it is not a catastrophic event – in principle, by itself it does not negatively affect living beings – some experts suggest that it could somehow damage electrical networks and leave us more exposed for a time to the charged particles emanating from the Sun and to cosmic rays, which would translate into a greater number of genetic mutations and cancer cases.
Photo: Image courtesy of University of California – Berkeley
