GEOMAGNETISM

EARTH’S MAGNETIC FIELD HANDOUT-1 (Lecture-3) BY MD. RIZWAN AHMED

❖ Geomagnetism is a relatively new field of study and it has increased our knowledge related to
geological processes and the earth’s interior.
❖ This field of study in geomorphology is credited to William Gilbert.
❖ Geomagnetism is the study of the dynamics of the Earth’s magnetic field, which is produced in
the outer core.
❖ The Earth’s magnetic field is predominantly a geo-axial dipole, with north and south magnetic
poles located near the geographic poles.
❖ Earth’s magnetic field is known to have wandered and flipped in the geologic past. This
wandering has generally been quite slow, around 9 km a year, allowing scientists to easily keep
track of its position. But since the turn of the century, this speed has increased to 50 km a year.

❖ The earth act as a dipole magnet where the geomagnetic south pole is near the earth’s geographic
north and vice versa.
❖ The magnetosphere (zone in which we can feel magnetic effect) extends to about 60,000 km
over earth’s surface.
❖ Geomagnetism is one of the fundamental interactions in universe which provides the study of
magnetic fields near the earth’s surface.
❖ Earth’s magnetic field extends up to 3200 km which can dispel the solar wind and save
earth from disaster. Earth’s magnetic field
❖ It protects us from solar flares and plays an important role in blocking the harmful gamma rays
from the sun.
❖ Some movements of earth’s geological past are known to have witnessed the disappearance of
magnetic field. These phases also coincide with some of major extinction on earth.
The Earth’s Magnetic Field:

The Earth has four layers: the thin outermost layer of lighter rock, ‘crust’; the rocky ‘mantle’; a
liquid-iron ‘outer core’ and the innermost layer, an iron ‘inner core’. The ‘inner core’ of the Earth
rotates at a different rate as compared to the solid outer layers. This feature, together with currents
in the molten ‘outer core’, generates the Earth’s magnetic field.

The magnetic field generally is similar to the field generated by a dipole magnet—a straight magnet
that has a north pole and a south pole—placed at the Earth’s centre. But the magnetic field changes

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 depending on the time and location on the Earth. The axis of the dipole is approximately 11 degrees
from the axis of rotation of the Earth which means that the geographical poles and the magnetic poles
in the north and the south are not in the same place.

• The magnetic poles are usually fairly close to the geographic poles (earth’s axis passes through these
poles), which is why a compass works.

• However, the dipole part of the field reverses after a few thousand years causing the locations of the
north and south magnetic poles to switch.

Geomagnetic Poles.

• The Geomagnetic poles (dipole poles) are the intersections of

the Earth’s surface and the axis of a bar magnet hypothetically
placed at the centre the Earth.

• There is such a pole in each hemisphere, and the poles are

called as “the geomagnetic north pole” and “the geomagnetic
south pole”, respectively.

• Approximately, geomagnetic dipole is currently tilted at an

angle of about 11 degrees to Earth’s rotational axis.

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• On the other hand, the magnetic poles (the magnetic north pole and the magnetic south pole) are the
points at which magnetic needles become vertical.

• The difference in the position of magnetic poles and geomagnetic poles is due to the uneven and
complex distribution of the earth’s magnetic field.

• The geomagnetic poles are antipodal points where the axis of a best-fitting dipole intersects the
surface of Earth. This theoretical dipole is equivalent to a powerful bar magnet at the center of Earth
and comes closer than any other model to describing the magnetic field observed at Earth’s surface.

• In contrast, the magnetic poles of the actual Earth are not antipodal; that is, the line on which they
lie does not pass through Earth’s centre.

Geomagnetic Reversal

At times, the secular variation becomes very large with the result that the magnetic poles are located
very distant from the geographic poles. This is termed an ‘excursion’ for the poles. After such a
period of enhanced secular variation, when the magnetic field returns to its state of rough alignment
with the axis of rotation of the Earth, it can have any polarity (the Earth’s dynamo does not prefer a
particular polarity). This flipping over or reversal of the magnetic field is a random occurrence. It
can happen every ten thousand years or every 50 million years or more. (The Sun’s magnetic field
in comparison reverses every eleven years.) It is not necessary that magnetic fields have to reverse;
they can also be steady, with no time-dependence feature.

• A geomagnetic reversal or a reversal in earth’s magnetic field is a change in a planet’s magnetic field
such that the positions of magnetic north and magnetic south are interchanged.

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• The reversal is not literally ‘periodic’ as it is on the sun, whose magnetic field reverses every 11
years.

• Lava flows of basalt have revealed that the Earth’s magnetic field reverses at an average interval of
about 2, 50,000 years; the intervals, however, range from thousands of years to millions of years.
The last reversal took place about 7, 80,000 years ago (the BrunhesMatuyama reversal).

• When the molten lava (basalt or even tholeiite) from the volcanoes cool, it adopts the magnetic field
present at the time. Other lava flows that follow produce bands of other magnetic fields. So we are
able to detect the variations in the Earth’s magnetic field over time. This kind of magnetisation is
termed ‘palaeomagnetism’. Studying the sequence of lava flows, the historical direction of the
planet’s magnetic field has been measured using a magnetic detector (working like a compass). It
has been discovered that the Earth’s poles have shifted time and again.

• The magnetic poles emerge at odd latitudes throughout the process of the reversal.

• The North and South Magnetic Poles wander (Polar Shift Theory) due to changes in Earth’s
magnetic field.
• The North Magnetic Pole (86֯ N, 172֯ W) lie to the north of Ellesmere Island in northern Canada
and is rapidly drifting towards Siberia.
• The location of the South Magnetic Pole is currently off the coast of Antarctica and even outside
the Antarctic Circle.
• Scientists suggest that the north magnetic pole migrates about 10 kilometres per year.
• Lately, the speed has accelerated to about 50 kilometres per year and could reach Siberia in a few
decades.
• Since the Earth’s magnetic field is not exactly symmetrical, the North and South Magnetic Poles
are not antipodal (a straight line drawn from one to the other does not pass through the centre of
the Earth).
• The Earth’s North and South Magnetic Poles are also known as Magnetic Dip Poles because of
the vertical “dip” of the magnetic field lines at those points.

Impact On the Compass:

The magnetic field reversals have a severe impact on the navigational compass. The compass now
points roughly north at most geographical locations. But before the last reversal occurred (7, 80,000

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 years), the polarity was reversed and so the compass would have pointed roughly to what is south
now.

During a reversal, the geometry of the magnetic field is complicated. In such an instance, a compass
would point in any direction based on criteria like its location on the Earth and the form of the mid-
transitional magnetic field. During a reversal, the Earth’s magnetic field is weaker than normal with
multiple magnetic poles.

Main Field:

The geomagnetic field on the Earth’s surface is a combination of several magnetic fields. Over 90
per cent of the geomagnetic field measured is produced ‘internally, that is, in the planets outer core
itself. This part of the geomagnetic field is the Main Field. On the other hand, magnetic fields are
created by the external currents in the ionised upper atmosphere and magnetosphere formed by the
differential flow of ions and electrons in these areas. These magnetic fields are even 10 per cent of
the Main Field at times. Magnetic fields are also induced by currents that flow in the Earth’s crust.

The Main Field shows small variation in time. It can be compared to a bar magnet with north and
south poles inside the Earth and magnetic field lines that go into space.

It is described by the International Geomagnetic Reference Field (IGRF) and World Magnetic Model
(WMM).

Sunspot theory (1884) - Sunspots are regions on the photosphere of the sun that appear dark because
they are cooler than the surrounding photosphere. Dark spots move across the surface of the sun,
contracting and expanding as they go. Sunspots have a temperature of about 4500 K, which is about
1500 K cooler than the rest of the photosphere.

• Sun by itself is a huge magnet and when it is in waxing period of magnetism and the sunspot activity
is high, the solar wing can breach magnetic shield of earth and enter earth’s sphere conditional to the
fact that earth’s magnetism is in waning period. Earth may acquire magnetism according to magnetic
polarity of sun.

• Meteoric hit or hit by a comet can reverse the polarity because due to collision, magnetism is lost
and when magnetism is re-organised magnetic poles can reverse it.

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 Auroras

❖ Aurora is the name given to the luminous glow in the upper atmosphere of the Earth which is
produced by charged particles (solar wind) descending from the planet’s magnetosphere.
❖ Positive ions slowly drift westward, and negative ions drift eastward, giving rise to a ring current.
This current reduces the magnetic field at the Earth’s surface.
❖ Some of these particles penetrate the ionosphere and collide with the atoms there.
❖ This results in an excitation of the oxygen and nitrogen molecular electrons. The molecules get
back to their original state by emitting photons of light which are the aurorae.
❖ The charged particles follow magnetic field lines which are oriented in and out of our planet and
its atmosphere near the magnetic poles. Therefore, aurorae mostly are seen to occur at high
latitudes.

Magnetic Declination
❖ It is also called horizontal component. It is the angle on the horizontal plane between magnetic
North and geographic (true) North.
❖ By convention the declination is positive when magnetic north is east of true north and negative
when it is to the west.
❖ In present perspective magnetic field magnetic declination reveals north magnetic pole to be
slightly west of the geographical North Pole and thus magnetic South Pole slightly east of
geographical South Pole.
❖ The molten mobile iron rich core which spins like dynamo flows and causes gradual westward
drift of geomagnetic field, resulting in the changing magnetic declination in entire geological past.
Declination is measured with magnetic compass.

Magnetic Equator:

The area where the dip or inclination (I) is zero (there is no vertical component to the magnetic field)
is called the magnetic equator. Again, the magnetic equator, like the magnetic field and poles, is not
fixed. It changes but slowly. The north end of the dip needle dips below the horizontal north of the
equator.

Here, inclination (I) and vertical intensity (Z) are measured positive. The south end of dip needle
dips below the horizontal south of the magnetic equator. Here, inclination and vertical intensity are
in the negative.

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 Both inclination and vertical intensity increases as one moves farther from the magnetic equator.
Theories About Origin of Earth’s Magnetism:

• Gilbert Theory:

• Earth’s magnetism was first discovered by Sir Gilbert in 1600s.

• According to Gilbert, magnetism is because of an embedded bar magnet in the interior of earth.

He proposed that the Earth itself is a magnet like a lodestone. The idea that the geomagnetic field
originates from the ferromagnetism of the Earth's material prevailed until the early years of this
century when it became clear that the Curie temperature of ferromagnetic materials is exceeded a
few tens of kilo-meters inside the Earth's crust and that an unreasonably high magnetization of the
upper crust would be required. Even before that time the phenomenon of secular variation was
difficult to reconcile with the hypothesis of remanent magnetism.

Numerous other hypotheses about the origin of geomagnetism have been explored and disregarded
(Rikitake,1966) except for the dynamo hypothesis originally put forward in 1919 by Larmor to
explain the magnetic field of sunspots. According to the dynamo hypothesis, motions within the
outer liquid-iron core of the Earth can amplify a magnetic field.
• Rock magnetism

• Earth’s magnetism may be because of rock magnetism. Rock magnetism is a fact but it is not
response for earth’s geomagnetism because randomly created magnetic rocks can’t explain the
specific orientation of earth’s magnetic field.

• The high temperature of interior should have destroyed the earth’s magnetism because no magnetism
can maintain itself in very high temperature and in molten fluid state.

• Dynamo theory

The dynamo theory was proposed by the German-born American physicist Walter
M.Elsasser and the British geophysicist Edward Bullard during the mid-1900s. (1939)
❖ According to this theory magnetism may be the consequence of particular structure of earth’s
core.
❖ The core consists of iron rich solid inner core which is magnetic and outer core which is hot fluid
in near plasma state with full movement of free electrons.

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 ❖ Because of the earth’s rotation the outer core with its free electrons also rotates about the inner
core producing di-electricity. This arrangement is called a typical solenoid.
❖ The solenoid creates a magnetic field which in turn induces a strong electric field which again
strengthens the magnetic field. This mechanism referred to as selfexiting dynamo.
❖ This theory though most acceptable one is unable to explain fluctuation in magnetic field and
reversal of polarity. Even though earth’s rotation has been very smooth and consistent throughout
its geological history earth’s spin never reversed.

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