Is the Magnetic Pole About to Flip?

Why is the magnetic North pole moving, and moving so fast? Paleomagnetism has taught us that the magnetic pole flips regularly, goint from North to South and vice versa, once every 250,000 years on average. However, the last inversion occurred 780,000 years ago! Are we on the eve of such a major event?

During the switch, the risk is that the Earth will no longer be protected by the magnetosphere, which would have terrible consequences for both human beings and animals (who use magnetism to assess their whereabouts), for nature in general and for our technology-dependent societies.

The film will follow Larry Newitt and Jean-Jacques Orgeval as they journey to France, Canada and Denmark to meet scientists from several disciplines (physicists, geophysicists, geologists, astronauts, marine biologists, paleo and archeomagneticians, etc.) in an attempt to understand, measure an explain the consequences of the forthcoming pole inversion.

Selected at Pariscience 2010
See the showing : Sunday 10th October 2010 from 15h00 to 16h30