ScienceUniverse TodayMagnetic Field Reversals and Extinctions: The Correlation Won't Go Away.
New research suggests a period of geomagnetic chaos in Earth's ancient past may be linked to a mass extinction event, though scientists say the connection is still not proven.
Scientists have wondered about a connection between Earth's geomagnetic reversals, or pole flips, and mass extinctions. They've found correlations, but nothing convincing enough to remove healthy doubts. But new research found a period of time with a concentrated number of reversals that coincides with and extinction and Large Igneous Provinces. It's likely not definitive proof, but it's certainly intriguing.
New research published in the National Science Review presents evidence linking a period of geomagnetic instability to the Permian environmental and biotic crisis.
Earth's magnetic poles have flipped roughly 183 times in the last 83 million years, with the last reversal occurring about 780,000 years ago, meaning we are statistically overdue.
Scientists say the correlation between pole flips and extinctions keeps reappearing in the data, but no one has yet proven a direct causal link.
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