What Ancient African Huts Reveal About Earth's Magnetic Flips

[Imperial Dave]

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/03/earth-magnetic-field-south-atlantic-anomaly-africa-science/

ok, ever so slightly not in the sphere of true history and all matters wargaming but a very interesting article nonetheless. Also there appears to have been a geomagnetic 'event' or process of rapid magnetic flux in the 5th to 8th centuries and the fact that a 10th century tribe in the Limpopo River Valley, ritually burned their huts and contents and fixed the geo-magnetic signature of the time in their burnt clay remains

[Patrick Waterson]

Any reader of Worlds in Collision could tell us exactly what those geomagnetic fluxes were ...

[Erpingham]

Any reader of Worlds in Collision could tell us exactly what those geomagnetic fluxes were ...

Readers of wikipedia would think that they were caused by the movement of liquid iron in the earth's core and they happen regularly.  And no, this isn't an invitation to debate science v. alternatives.

[Imperial Dave]

 

[Mark G]

Careful joking about that, one team is back to full strength again, and rested.

[Patrick Waterson]

The topic is covered in pp.126-129 of Earth in Upheaval, the section entitled 'Magnetic Reversals'.  While at times they happen frequently, they do not happen regularly (we have had none for the past 2,500+ years, for example).

[Dave Beatty]

Just in case anyone is concerned about what will happen to stuff like GPS when this happens again, back when I was a rocket scientist and working on developing GPS (no kidding, I was once a rocket scientist and helped invent GPS, back in 1973) that was one of the things we took into consideration. I won't go into details, but don't worry about GPS. It might take a few minutes for the USAF to sort out the mess so it is never a bad idea to have a paper map handy... Now, Eurocontrol is a totally different animal...