A few years ago, workers digging to create a power plant in New Zealand discovered a 60-ton trunk of a kauri tree and, according to researchers, has captured the latest collapse of Earth’s magnetic field.
ScienceMag
The massive trunk that actually belongs to one of the nation’s largest tree species is said to be about 42,000 years old and preserved in muddy, moist terrain; their rings stretched for 1,700 years and show a chaotic timeline when magnetic field of the world he was turned upside down.
The radiocarbon levels of this massive piece of wood show an increase in space radiation Earth’s magnetic field which protected him weakened and the poles really spun, according to researchers.
They say that by modeling the effect of this radiation on the Earth’s atmosphere, the Earth’s climate for some time changed drastically, which could have been responsible for the extinction of large mammals. of Australia and the Neanderthals in Europe.
What is most surprising is that the study tells a detailed story about the timing and magnitude of this dust exchange, while being the first to make a credible (albeit speculative) case that states that the Investment change can affect the global climate.
In case you didn’t know, Earth’s magnetic field it is formed by the flow of molten iron in the outer core of the earth’s crust which is also susceptible to chaotic oscillations which is known to not only weaken the field, but can also cause the poles to move and rotate completely.
The magnetic orientation of minerals in rock is known to leave traces of long-term inversions, but the same cannot be said for flips that last only a few hundred years, such as that of about 42,000 years ago. However, radioactive carbon 14 can detect these short fluctuations. The isotope is created when cosmic rays from space pass through the magnetic field and impact against the atmosphere.
This is also absorbed by living things on the planet, including trees. The team took advantage of the help of radiocarbon to date the aforementioned kauri wood with the help of accurate but quite crude radiocarbon cave records from China. After measuring more carbon-14 changes up to tree rings, they tracked the difference in their growth at 40-year intervals as the magnetic fields decreased and increased.
Radiocarbon spikes suggested that the magnetic field weakened by 6% of its current strength about 41,500 years ago.. During this time, the sticks fell and the field regained strength, but then it crashed and went back about 500 years later.
NASA
Researchers also claim that at that time not only the cosmic ray shield of our planet was not functional, but also that of the Sun. Looking at the tracks of the ice cores, the researchers suggest that at that time the sun was experiencing episodes of low magnetic activity, called high minima, which they said would have destroyed current power grids and created auroras in the subtropics due to ambient ionization.
The execution of a climate model further suggested that this cosmic ray attack would have destroyed the ozone layer, reducing the heat it captures from UV rays, while causing changes in cooling at high altitudes, altering the fluxes of the ozone layer. wind and would cause catastrophic changes on the Earth’s surface, with a colder America and a warmer Europe.