It took an incredibly long time for the Earth’s poles to flip

[Mike Wehner]

If you're looking for some kind of apocalyptic scenario to get anxious about, the Earth's poles flipping is as good a nightmare as any. Scientists know that our planet's poles have indeed flipped in the past, but how long it took for that to happen has long been a topic of debate.

Cheesy sci-fi movies depict the magnetic field shift as happening virtually overnight, and while researchers know that's not the case it's still hard to pin down an estimate. Now, a new study from researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison suggests that a pole flip which occurred around 770,000 years ago took tens of thousands of years to finish once it began.

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It took an incredibly long time for the Earth’s poles to flip originally appeared on BGR.com on Thu, 8 Aug 2019 at 19:05:40 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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