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The airport has closed its primary runway until Jan. 13 to repaint the numeric designators at each end and change taxiway signage to account for the shift in location of the Earth's magnetic north pole. The closure of the west parallel runway will result in more activity on the east parallel runway and more noise for residential areas of South Tampa. The busiest runway will be re-designated 19R/1L on aviation charts. It's been 18R/36L, indicating its alignment along the 180-degree approach from the north and the 360-degree approach from the south. Later this month, the airport's east parallel runway and...

What may be a new outermost layer of the Earth's core has been found, geoscientists have revealed. This discovery could help solve mysteries of the planet's magnetic field, researchers say. The Earth's core is composed mainly of iron, divided into a solid inner center roughly 1,500 miles (2,440 kilometers) wide covered by a liquid outer layer about 1,400 miles (2,250 km) thick. Even though the bulk of the core is iron, researchers also knew it contained a small amount of lighter elements such as oxygen and sulfur. As the inner core crystallized over time, scientists think this process forced out...

A new method of capturing detailed, three-dimensional images of minute samples of material under extreme pressures is shedding light on the evolution of the Earth's interior. Early results suggest that the early Earth did not have to be entirely molten to separate into the rocky crust and iron-rich core it has today. Researchers at Stanford University and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory are leading the group pioneering the technique, which could lead to a wide range of new experiments.To answer the big questions, it often helps to look at the smallest details. That is the approach Stanford mineral physicist Wendy Mao...

Earth's internal dynamo generates average field in outer core 50 times that at surface A University of California, Berkeley, geophysicist has made the first-ever measurement of the strength of the magnetic field inside Earth's core, 1,800 miles underground. The magnetic field strength is 25 Gauss, or 50 times stronger than the magnetic field at the surface that makes compass needles align north-south. Though this number is in the middle of the range geophysicists predict, it puts constraints on the identity of the heat sources in the core that keep the internal dynamo running to maintain this magnetic field. "This is...

Using a delicate instrument located under a mountain in central Italy, two University of Massachusetts Amherst physicists are measuring some of the faintest and rarest particles ever detected, geo-neutrinos, with the greatest precision yet achieved. The data reveal, for the first time, a well defined signal, above background noise, of the extremely rare geo-neutrino particle from deep within Earth. The small number of anti-neutrinos detected, however, only a couple each month, helps to settle a long-standing question among geophysicists and geologists about whether our planet harbors a huge, natural nuclear reactor at its core. Geo-neutrinos are anti-neutrinos produced in the...

Earth's north magnetic pole is racing toward Russia at almost 40 miles (64 kilometers) a year due to magnetic changes in the planet's core, new research says. The core is too deep for scientists to directly detect its magnetic field. But researchers can infer the field's movements by tracking how Earth's magnetic field has been changing at the surface and in space. Now, newly analyzed data suggest that there's a region of rapidly changing magnetism on the core's surface, possibly being created by a mysterious "plume" of magnetism arising from deeper in the core. And it's this region that...

Stansted Airport in Essex has renamed its 3,000m (9,750ft) runway because the position of the Earth's magnetic North Pole has moved. The runway was known by pilots and air traffic controllers as 23/05 because of its location and compass heading. The magnetic North Pole drifts naturally, and every 50 years its position alters significantly. Managers at Stansted decided they must call the runway 22/04 to reflect the new position and bearing. Trevor Waldock, head of airside operations, said: "We've had to make this change due to the Magnetic North Pole slowly drifting on the Earth's surface but our runway remains...

Spinning a "mucus net" off its paddle-like foot-wings to trap algae and other foods, the swimming snail species Limacina helicinia is no bigger than a bean. But the discovery that it and at least 234 other species inhabit both Arctic and Antarctic waters is big news to biologists.

Al Gore warns of pole shift Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore has been touring the world and making presentations of an impending global pole shift. "The world is in a greater danger now than ever before", Mr. Gore said, "and the time for us to take action is drawing short". "Any time between now and the year 2012 the earth will shift on its axis, causing massive flooding, worldwide suffering and death." Mr. Gore also urged action on the part of his audiences, including massive migration of humans from one continent to another to shift the load on the...

Our North loses the Pole After centuries in Canada, the roaming magnetic North Pole has crossed into international waters, en route to Siberia CanWest News Service Thursday, June 09, 2005 YELLOWKNIFE, N.W.T. - Sometime in the last year, a longtime friend turned its back on Canada and was last spotted heading for Siberia.For centuries, the magnetic North Pole was ours, a constant companion that wandered the rolling tundra and frozen seas of our Arctic.But no more.A Canadian scientist who recently returned from a trip to measure the Pole's current location says it has now left Canadian territory and crossed into...

Earth loses its magnetism By Molly Bentley in San Francisco Scientists have known for some time that the Earth's magnetic field is fading. The field is mainly dipolar - but there are anomalies Like a Kryptonite-challenged Superman, its strength has steadily and mysteriously waned, leaving parts of the planet vulnerable to increased radiation from space. Some satellites already feel the effects. What is uncertain is whether the weakened field is on the way to a complete collapse and a reversal that would flip the North and South Poles. Compasses pointing North would then point South. It is not a matter...

SAN FRANCISCO - Earth's north magnetic pole is drifting away from North America and toward Siberia at such a clip that Alaska might lose its spectacular Northern Lights in the next 50 years, scientists said Thursday. Despite accelerated movement over the past century, the possibility that Earth's modestly fading magnetic field will collapse is remote. But the shift could mean Alaska may no longer see the sky lights known as auroras, which might then be more visible in more southerly areas of Siberia and Europe. The magnetic poles are part of the magnetic field generated by liquid iron in Earth's...

The Earth's magnetic field is weakening, and that could lead to a flip in the planet's poles making compasses point south instead of north for the first time in almost a million years, say scientists. Experts at the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco say the field has declined 10 percent in the last 150 years, and suggest a reversal could lead to problems in navigation and a jump in cancer rates with a diminished ozone layer. "Is a reversal coming? Yeah, it's coming for sure – sometime,'' said geologist Robert Coe of the University of California-Santa Cruz, according to...

After some 400 years of relative stability, Earth's North Magnetic Pole has moved nearly 1,100 kilometers out into the Arctic Ocean during the last century and at its present rate could move from northern Canada to Siberia within the next half-century. If that happens, Alaska may be in danger of losing one of its most stunning natural phenomena - the Northern Lights. But the surprisingly rapid movement of the magnetic pole doesn't necessarily mean that our planet is going through a large-scale change that would result in the reversal of the Earth's magnetic field, Oregon State University paleomagnetist Joseph Stoner...

Rush made mentioned this week of a core sample that showed evidence of tropical remains from an Arctic sample. Here are the results of a similar study done by a federally funded organization that claims this has been happening for........ever. Simulated three-dimensional structure of Earth's magnetic field, with inward (blue) and outward (yellow) directed field lines. Field lines extend two Earth radii from the core. The location of the core-mantle boundary is evident where the structure becomes complex

Earth's magnetic field - the force that protects us from deadly radiation bursts from outer space - is weakening dramatically. Scientists have discovered that its strength has dropped precipitously over the past two centuries and could disappear over the next 1,000 years. The effects could be catastrophic. Powerful radiation bursts, which normally never touch the atmosphere, would heat up its upper layers, triggering climatic disruption. Navigation and communication satellites, Earth's eyes and ears, would be destroyed and migrating animals left unable to navigate. 'Earth's magnetic field has disappeared many times before - as a prelude to our magnetic poles flipping...

Magnetic Pole Flip, latest news : among the facts that are now revealed to the public : the magnetic field over the South Atlantic Ocean is now so weak that planes and satelites have now been forced to change their routes.

How long have the scientists known about the predicted pole-shift, expected date and likely causes, outcomes?

The exact location of the North and South Poles of the Earth's spin axis are constantly changing while the Earth's crust wobbles slightly around and over the poles in the 14 month and 6.5 year cycles of Chandler's Wobble. The eigth graphs in this story board demonstrate that peaks of seismic and volcanic activity come and go in accordance with these rhythms of Chandler's Wobble to produce the El Nino syndrome. The graphs also prove that the total amount of this activity has progressively increased during the last 50 years while the center of Chandler's Wobble has slowly drifted towards...

Is spinning clockwise????? At 12 north in 114 west wow wow wow http://www.ssd.noaa.gov/PS/TROP/DATA/RT/epac-ir4-loop.html I don't know what to say :) I'm new to freerepublic but have been watching for a few years.