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Earths' 3.2 billion-year-old surprise

physorg.com — Geophysicists at the University of Rochester announce in today’s issue of Nature that the Earth’s magnetic field was nearly as strong 3.2 billion years ago as it is today. The findings, which are contrary to previous studies, suggest that even in its earliest stages the Earth was already well protected from the solar wind, which can strip away

Who dugg this? Made popular Apr 5, 2007

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  • dtd00d, on 10/12/2007, -0/+27Whew I thought for a second it was pregnant...
  • Wonkanobi, on 10/12/2007, -9/+29Buried as inaccurate - everyone knows that the Earth was created less than ten thousand years ago by the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
  • cpbrown, on 10/12/2007, -5/+24old story. i rember seeing this a few billion years back. buried.
  • outz, on 10/12/2007, -2/+17Does anyone else accidentally read diggs comment section and then regrets it?
  • zevgreen, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16Holy crap! I thought the earth was 6000 years old! Why didn't they tell me this when my public school science class was replaced by bible study!?
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+13Then I'll buy you a garbage plate
  • tical2756, on 10/12/2007, -3/+12Too many people from Rochester use digg. And why the hell is it still snowing in April.
  • krock2883, on 10/12/2007, -3/+11Dr. Josh Keyes: "Even if we could restart the core, we could never get there!"
    Dr. Conrad Zimsky: "What if we could..."
  • gta3mobster, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10I know nothing about rocks, but it says: "larger magnetic crystals can lose their original magnetic signature at much lower temperatures, meaning they are more likely to suffer magnetic contamination from later warming geological events." I'm guessing he had to be so picky because there could've been undiscovered global events (super volcanoes, meteors, etc.) that would reorientated the fields to the date of the reheating.

    He is using the tiny bits to figure out the magnetic field. "Once he isolated the ideal crystals, Tarduno measured how much magnetism these individual particles contained."

    I hope this clarifies.

    [Sweet, front page, lets see how dugg down my first comment gets]
  • diggfinity, on 10/12/2007, -5/+11Humans: "We're way too young for this, baby. Can't you get a ......."
    Earth: "Nobody's mining my mantle! It's against my universe!"
  • crocos, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7ba-dum tissh!

    Thank you ladies and gentlemen, he'll be here all night! Try the fish!
  • thesauce, on 10/12/2007, -3/+8Some of the things he says in the article don't make any sense to me. To get the magnetic record of the Earth, you are supposed to find an extrusive igneous rock from a certain time period and check the magnetic orientation of the magnetites trapped within. But in the article he says he has to check the tiny bits for a magnetic field. Why would he need to do that? If the magnetites were all aligned to a certain degree at a magnetic field, wouldn't that prove the strength of the magnetic field? Also he says that temperature increases might mess up the magnetic field, but as far as I know the only way you can mess up the orientation of the magnetites in an igneous rock is for it to be subducted and undergo metamorphism from high temperatures/pressures, which would completely change the rock, removing the opportunity to use isotopic dating to even see if the rock is 3.2 billion years old.

    Can someone clarify?
  • tvh2k, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Rochester, represent!
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5- "There is a God."
    What the ***** has this to do with the article. . .go and have a life. . .A REAL ONE !!!
  • macaddct1984, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Even more bizarre, the geomagnetic reversal of the poles that happens pretty frequently:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal
  • droversoul, on 10/12/2007, -4/+7Surprise! You were adopted.....by Xenu.
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3It's snowing in April because it's f'ing Rochester.

    I've seen snow at the Lilac festival back in 1999. (That's in MAY!)

    As for the real reason, according to the local weather dweebs, WARM air coming up from El Nino went up the west coast and into Canada, pushing COLD air into the jetstream down and across the North East.

    Damn El Nino. Next time that thing shows up, dump some ice cubes in the ocean, ok Peru? Thanks!
  • dudad, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Leave it to the etymologist to mispell "right" as "write".
  • cawpin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Don't forget to tip your waitress!
  • crocos, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Nah, you should know by now that no-one even uses the Digg comment system....
  • xxdesmus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Dude, I am from Rochester...this is cool.
  • tvh2k, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3See: http://digg.com/space/Earths_3_2_billion_year_old_surprise#c6011208
  • piesforyou, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2@thesauce

    I'm not sure what you need clarifying, the article explains it pretty well. He chose the smallest inclusions because they are less likely to have been altered since their initial crystalisation, and then to make sure the data was correct he checked the actual alignment against other data of the same age.

    I think you're saying that, so what, if they're aligned then it proves their was a magnetic field? Not necessarily because if the crystals were heated just enough to let the orientation of their magnetic field change BUT not to actually reset the radioactive decay series of the rock, then the strength of the field calculated would not correspond to the age of the rock. In that case, the crystals would be showing the strength of the field after 3.2Ga.

    The temperature required to alter the magnetic properties of the rock is significantly less than that required to reset the nuclear series used for dating the rock.
  • answer42, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2RAmen
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3yoehoe : "...that the Earth’s magnetic field was nearly as strong 3.2 billion years ago as it is today"
    conclusion .. it has a cycle. .. it weakens. . it get stronger . .it weakens. .it gets stronger . .etc..

    Simply reffering to a article without thinking is dumb.
  • levi, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Inaccurate. Every one know that the Earth is only 10,000 years old.
    /sarcasm
  • skidzilla, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It's a real shame that Mars doesn't have a magnetic field like Earth's, even if we ever do suceed in terraforming Mars for human colonisation the air would be gradually stripped away by the Sun. So no, what happened in 'Total Recall' can never happen unfortunately. :/
  • inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1And the lord said let their be gravity...newton can explain the rest.
  • bigern75, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2damn, they're out using my time machine again to go back 3.2 billion years to check the magnetic field again. Note to self, need a bigger lock on the garage door so they can't break in anymore.
  • aludra, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1inaccurate. It's like picking two points on a line. Where's all the other data to show the trend? It could be a sin wave or parabolic for all that matters.
  • VinceNoir, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@dudad

    Are you saying that you are speaking against the word of God? He will smite you if you do.
  • Caruthers, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I guess I should have added to my first comment that I'm a geologist and I really don't care...
  • fwedwic, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4global warming my young pond skipper
  • hifiDesign, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3What they don't mention is that the earth's magnetic field is actually weakening...

    http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/09/0909_040909_earthmagfield.html
  • RMoore08, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1And John Travolta is his right hand man.
  • haggie, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3video or intelligent design says it didn't happen
  • smart394, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2I live near the earth's magnetic field...
  • VinceNoir, on 10/12/2007, -2/+0Let's break it down a little shall we? The guy's name is "Tarduno". Using the classic technology of etymology, that means his name is made up of the prefix "tard" and ends with the postfix "uno". All scholars know that "uno" means "one" in latin or greek or something. And EVERYONE knows what "tard" means. So by the science that binds me to my conclusions I state that this man is "Retard number one". And besides, if he's write, then he's trying to disprove god and all good christians. So forget him. He's a damn liar.
  • yensed, on 10/12/2007, -5/+2Its a Boy!
  • TheKillDoctor, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1And he took a dump and created the universe.
  • PaperJesus, on 10/12/2007, -11/+1i live near the university of rochester =O
  • torrentado, on 10/12/2007, -12/+1There is a God.
  • giggadee, on 10/12/2007, -21/+7Phew! I'd been worrying about that for sometime now. I'm glad it's all clear now. "Digging up news from 3.2 billion years ago -- We are, physorg.com".
  • Caruthers, on 10/12/2007, -16/+2I'm sure geophysicists / geologists from around the world are the only people who do care.
  • gta3mobster, on 10/12/2007, -20/+1Perhaps these "magnetic fields" are the "crystal spheres" Aristotle believed in (you know, the Earth centered universe). I wonder if this article qualifies for a god debate (with the recent outbreak).

    Quite a process Tarduno used with the feldspar/quartz rocks... Just to prove the Earth's magnetic field didn't lose any intensity in a span of 700 million years... It's like 'who cares?!' but I guess it may be important.

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