Evidence of Second Fast North-South Pole Flip Found

Whether being flipped on your head by way of a pole reversal keeps you up at night, gnawing on the end of your blanket thanks to Hollywood's over active imagination, here is a scientific article that gives you and me much food for thought. So put down the frayed ends of that blanket and sink your mental teeth into this discovery.

The Earth's magnetic poles flip around every 200,000 years or so, with north becoming south and vice versa. Normally, the process takes 4-5,000 years and it ought to be impossible for the flip to be much faster, if models of the Earth's core are correct, but now for the second time evidence has been found of a flip that appears to have taken only a few years.
 

The first time evidence was discovered of a rapid geomagnetic field reversal was in 1995 when well-preserved lava flows were found at Steens Mountain in Oregon in the US. Research on the rocks by a team led by geologist Scott Bogue of the Occidental College in Los Angeles revealed the lava flow had an unusual magnetic pattern that suggested the magnetic field had been shifting over 10,000 times faster than normal, at six degrees a day. The magnetic patterns are preserved within the magnetic crystals in the lava, formed as the lava flow cooled.
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