Pole Shift

[All Seeing Eye]

But the earths magnetic field is weakening and a very weak field around the Earth getting hit by a supermassive solar flare during solar maximum might flip the inner core.

 

[Alpha_Geek]

Charged particles from the sun (and solar flares) are constantly being pushed around by the earth's magnetic field. And because of equal and opposite forces, the particles push back against the earth's core. So the core does feel those particles thrown out in flares, but we're talking different orders of magnitude.

Over centuries of time, that constant niggling little force might do something to the field. I don't know.

How does it know how much force to push back with?

ZOMG!!! THE PLANET IS INTELLIGENT!!!

Sorry, I couldn't resist a bit of silliness.

 

[DonIago]

And in other news, it turns out that Pandora -was- Earth all along!

 

[RoJoHen]

I think the Magnetic Field is preparing for the final season of "Lost."

 

[DonIago]

So we can expect John Cusack to be guest-starring? Meh.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

This is a very serious discussion.

 

[Amaris]

I never gave magnetic field reversal much thought. Wasn't there a theory posited some time ago about pole reversal killing off the dinosaurs?

 

[All Seeing Eye]

I never gave magnetic field reversal much thought. Wasn't there a theory posited some time ago about pole reversal killing off the dinosaurs?

I dunno about that.

But if a massive solar flare of charged particles hit an Earth with a weak magnetic field and caused the inner core to flip, the inner core would start spinning in the opposite direction. I would imagine the Earths surface would end up slowing down really fast and altering direction and position. Tsunamis and volcanic eruptions would likely result.

So maybe when the Dinosaurs were around, the Earth span the opposite direction to what it is now and a pole reversal caused their extinction and made the Earth spin the direction it is now. Heck maybe it's changed directions several times since.
Also if the Earths crust suddenly moves maybe that explains sudden ice ages and explains how a mammoth froze so fast that the food remained intact in its stomach, because the mammoth would have been at a certain latitude then the sudden shift of the crust northwards would change the mammoths latitude so it ended up closer to the north most point of the Earth.

 

[Jadzia]

But if a massive solar flare of charged particles hit an Earth with a weak magnetic field and caused the inner core to flip, the inner core would start spinning in the opposite direction. I would imagine the Earths surface would end up slowing down really fast and altering direction and position. Tsunamis and volcanic eruptions would likely result.

Well the earth is supposed to be slowing down.

The earth's rotation is slowing at a rate of about 0.005 seconds per year per year. This extrapolates to the earth having a fourteen-hour day 4.6 billion years ago, which is entirely possible.

The rate at which the earth is slowing today is higher than average because the present rate of spin is in resonance with the back-and-forth movement of the oceans.

Fossil rugose corals preserve daily and yearly growth patterns and show that the day was about 22 hours long 370 million years ago, in rough agreement with the 22.7 hours predicted from a constant rate of slowing (Scrutton 1964; Wells 1963).

However, there is a conspiracy theory about why its slowing more so now than it has in the past, which might be of interest to you.

The conspiracy claims are that the atomic clocks appear to have drifted, and keep having to accept adjustments every year from the US Navy who declare themselves to have the master clock. These adjustments are hidden amongst the leap seconds we get from time to time (because days and years don't perfectly line up hence leap years and leap seconds) but these adjustments are claimed to not tally up with our observations of star positions.


However, the earth won't suddenly start spinning the opposite way. The moon has much more to say about earth's rotation than the sun. There's a lot of energy in spinning things, which we can get a good feel for by playing with gyroscopes and spinning tops. The earth is no different.

 

[All Seeing Eye]

However, the earth won't start spinning the opposite way, probably ever. The moon has much more to say about earth's rotation than the sun, and the forces just aren't that great. There's a lot of energy in spinning things, which we can get a good feel for by playing with gyroscopes and spinning tops. The earth is no different.

How can the mantle and crust of the Earth possibly spin in the opposite direction to the spin of the inner core?

If the inner core is spinning clockwise it will without question be spinning anti-clockwise if it flips. So following a flip the inner core will spin opposite to the mantle and crust. Surely the mantle and crust will begin to suddenly slow down and spin the new direction the inner core is spinning at.

 

[Alpha_Geek]

Are you sure? Better go look.

If the inner core is spinning clockwise it will without question be spinning anti-clockwise if it flips. So following a flip the inner core will spin opposite to the mantle and crust. Surely the mantle and crust will begin to suddenly slow down and spin the new direction the inner core is spinning at.

 

[Lindley]

The rotation of the core would need to come nearly to a stop before it could possibly flip over. I'm not certain it's a real possibility even then. But as long as it has even a little bit of rotation, it will strongly resist changing the plane of that rotation, as any gyroscope would.