Pole Shift - A Disaster Waiting to Happen?

An impending magnetic, or pole, reversal was one of the hot topics of
the 80's when the book "Pole Shift" by John White was a best seller
and it was thought that it might happen any time now.
As with most prophesies around the end of the twentieth century, the
sense of impending doom has lessened and the pole shift "warning" has
been downgraded to a pole shift "watch."
But this is one of those things that are very probably going to happen
at some point "soon" in the earth's history....it's just that mankind
has a very small view of the overall earth clock, and to the earth,
"soon" could mean anytime in the next 100,000 years, so don't hold
your breath. Scientists currently tell us that pole shifts occur, on
average, once every 500,000 years. The last pole shift was 780,000
years ago so we are overdue for one (just as we are overdue for a big
asteroid strike, and for a super volcano eruption....just hope they
don't all happen at once!)

The planet's geologic record has very clear evidence that pole shifts
have occurred many times in the past and there is no doubt that they
will occur again. ( The phenomenon referred to here as a "pole shift"
is not the shifting of the crust by thousands of miles, but rather,
changes in the magnetic field of the planet. Some unscrupulous writers
in the 70s and 80s tried to imply that the continents were going to
start sliding about like melting ice on a hot plate, but that's not
current scientific thinking.)

However, its not all good news. Until recently, it was thought that
pole shifts were a gradual process. But recent evidence from studying
the alignment of iron particles in lava flows found one case where the
Earth's magnetic field shifted 80 degrees in 13 days.

Compasses would obviously be effected as would all navigational
instruments which depend on them. So shipping, air-flight and all GPS
equipment, including satellites, would be off-line until we figured
out how to cope with the reversal. Global trade would be brought
quickly to a standstill, and the winners would probably turn out to be
those that remembered how to navigate in the old ways, such as nomadic
people and sea-farers on old sailing ships

Migratory birds, fish and animals would become confused. This might
lead to them wandering far from current feeding and breeding grounds,
into areas not suitable for them, and could quite easily be concieved
as leading to mass extinctions, habitat destruction and loss of life,
both animal and human.

While this latter theory is controversial, scientists have already
shown that insects can actually be killed as a result of fluctuations
in magnetic fields around them, and the same experimenters have shown
similar, though smaller, effects in humans, leaving them dazed and
confused. If you consider the number of humans involved in operating
machinery that would be life-threatening in the case of faulty
operation, you can see that global effects would probably be large.

In addition large scale fluctuations in magnetic fields would knock
out power suppliers, and all electro-magnetic communication could
conceivably be disrupted for long periods of time.

A rapid magnetic reversal would include very large scale fluctuations
in the Earth's magnetic field, which extends out 60,000 km from the
surface of the planet. It is also thought by many doomsayers that a
diminished magnetic field which shields us from energetic particles
emitted continuously by the sun would leave us vulnerable to the
harmful effects of magnetic storms spawned by solar flares and sun
spots. This would probably be hazardous to our health :)

BUT the magnetic field does not protect the earth from solar flares.
It simply
guides the ions of the solar wind to the polar regions, where their
energetic collisions with the upper atmosphere produce the luminous
plasma
known as the Northern and Southern Lights (Aurora Borealis and Aurora
Australis). It is the earth's atmosphere that actually prevents the
solar
wind from reaching the surface, and that is independent of the
magnetic field.

It is thought by some geologists that a rapid switch in the magnetic
field could lead to stresses in rock strata and lead to major
earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, with the possible scenario of the
"Ring of Fire" all going off at once and sending the world into
nuclear winter.

So, if you consider a world with no TV, radio, telephones (fixed or
mobile), computers, shop-tills, no planes,no ships, no radar, no air
traffic control, where weapons of mass destruction were likely to go
off without human intervention, and nuclear subs suddenly started
spontaneously exploding while aged power stations lost all their
regulatory barriers, you'll get an idea of the possibilities. Think of
all the disasters they were warning about for the so called "Millennium
Bug" in 2000, then imagine them all actually happening.
Then imagine the earth shaking, hot ash falling on your head, a tidal
wave approaching, and a migratory herd of Wildebeest turning up on
your doorstep.

As for the UN....they'd pass a resolution against it, but it would
happen anyway. But what else is new?

William Meikle is a Scottish writer, currently travelling in Canada, with seven novels published in the States and three more coming in 2007/8, all in the independent fantasy and horror press. His short work and articles have appeared in the UK, Ireland, USA, Canada, Greece, Saudi Arabia and India. He also has three shorts produced from his scripts, and several supernatural scripts currently on option, including four shorts, and a supernatural thriller feature.

William Meikle
http://www.williammeikle.com

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