The closure of Tampa International Airport due to a shift in the magnetic poles has started controversy around the thousands of recent animal deaths. The closure of this solitary airport coincides with global reports of mass deaths of fish, birds and other animals. Could the shift in the magnetic north pole be causing the deaths of thousands of animals?
Movement of the Magnetic North Pole
The magnetic north pole has shifted about 50 kilometers (31 mi) between 1831 and 2001. Scientists at NASA, and the Geological Survey of Canada check its location regularly. The National Geographic reported the movement of the magnetic north pole covered a distance of 1,100 kilometers (85 miles) between the early 1900s and 2005. Since 1641 magnetic pole charts have been re-written off and on to account for the change in average location.
Natural Resources Canada reports that the approximate location of the magnetic north pole changes about about 41 kilometers per year (25 mi/yr) since 1970 compared its previous rate of 9 kilometers per year (5.6 mi/yr). Yet, within any given day, the magnetic north pole may fluctuate 85 kilometers (53 mi) around this spot.
Plate Tectonics
Plate tectonics shows the reversal in the magnetic poles. Lava flowing out from volcanoes shows direction of polarity as it solidifies. The magnetic basalt formations left behind from the cooling lava show the polarity of the earth at that time. During the process of sea floor spreading, these zones also show lava along mid-ocean trenches which bear unique polarity depending upon the earth's magnetic field.
Frequency of Reversing Magnetic Poles
About 740,000 years ago was the last time the magnetic pole reversed according to NASA. Scientists are able to study about 50 million years of data laid down along the mid-ocean trenches. Pole reversals occur about every 500,000 years.
Process of Reversing Dipoles
During the process of magnetic pole reversal, the magnetic field does not disappear entirely. The field weakens gradually over thousands of years, and develops several poles at various locations. Geophysicist, Peter Olson is studying a small disturbance in the magnetic dipole occurring in the Atlantic Ocean near the Caribbean. This instability is traveling north towards North America. At the moment, the magnetic dipole is weakening about 7% every 100 years.
Magnetic Field Variation Effect on Airports
The Tampa International Airport has been closed temporarily to adjust runways to correspond to the earth's magnetic fields. The magnetic fields have varied by about 35 degrees between the late 1500s and the early 1800s.
Magnetic Pole Reversal Effect on Animals
According to Dr. David P. Stern, scientists have no method of discovering the effects of magnetic pole reversals on birds, fish and other animals as the last time the magnetic poles reversed was over 700,000 years ago.
Dead Animals, Birds, Fish Found Globally
People around the world are trying to solve the puzzle about why birds, fish and other animals have been dying in great numbers as 2011 rolls in. Turtle doves in Italy, died due to lack of oxygen or hypoxia according to autopsy reports. Scientists theorize that a wind storm carried the birds into high altitudes.
Mass hysteria and panic reactions to New Year's Eve fireworks killed thousands of blackbirds in Arkansas and Louisiana as well as Jackdaws in Sweden.
The millions of dead fish in Maryland's Chesapeake Bay, were killed by a sudden cooling of temperature according to the Department of Environment. Thousands of crabs and other animals along the shores of the United Kingdom also suffered a similar fate from a cooler temperature drop.
Regarding the dead fish near Brazil, scientists speculate that cold weather or chemical pollution in the water could be the cause.
Scientific Fact
As Mark Twain once said, “There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment in fact." A quotation from Confucius also helps to sort out the theories and speculations from the facts; “When you know a thing, to hold that you know it; and when you do not know a thing, to allow that you do not know it - this is knowledge.”
For further information Wild Birds Freeze to Death from Fireworks Display
Source
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