Figure 1. The Earth’s magnetic field, history of geomagnetic reversals, and a geomagnetic-reversal simulation (IMAGE)

National Institutes of Natural Sciences

Figure 1. The Earth’s magnetic field, history of geomagnetic reversals, and a geomagnetic-reversal simulation

Caption

Schematic of the Earth’s magnetic field (upper left), history of geomagnetic reversals inferred from the remanent magnetization of ocean-floor rocks (lower left; compiled from data in Ogg, Geologic Time Scale 2020, Elsevier, 2020), and results of a geomagnetic-reversal simulation (right). Rocks that upwell from the mantle at mid-ocean ridges become magnetized by the Earth’s magnetic field as they cool and solidify. Because rocks formed at the ridge move away to both sides of the ridge axis, the polarity of the remanent magnetization preserved in these rocks records the history of geomagnetic reversals as a stripe-like pattern. The simulation results show the irregular reversal behavior reproduced a quarter century ago in simulations conducted at NIFS.

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National Institute for Fusion Science

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