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From: erkyrath@netcom.com (Andrew Plotkin)
Subject: Re: Magnetic field reversals
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Date: Wed, 18 Dec 1996 23:54:48 GMT
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Roger Carbol (rog@col.ca) wrote:
> Andrew Plotkin wrote:

> > During a reversal, the field strength of the Earth decreases by about a
> > factor of ten, and the field direction fluctuates anomalously (at any
> > given measuring site.) It's not a simple case of a dipole field rotating
> > 180 degrees. The whole thing gets messy, and sort of bubbly -- there's a
> > neat (entirely theoretical, computer simulated) picture of a sphere
> > halfway through (somebody's model of a) reversal, and it's got big
> > patches and bands of "north pole" and "south pole" wandering around the
> > planet.

> To get even farther off-topic, I'd bet the aurorae would look really
> cool during that time.

> Roger Carbol .. rog@col.ca .. ooh, the South-Eastern Lights

Heh. "Aurora Orientalis..." (unless I've munged my declensions.)

(But of course, "Aurora Borealis" means the "northern dawn", so "Aurora 
Orientalis" is actually nothing out of the ordinary. Sigh.)

--Z

-- 

"And Aholibamah bare Jeush, and Jaalam, and Korah: these were the
borogoves..."
