Magnetic Field of the Earth

Magnetic Field of the Earth

The earth’s magnetic field is critically important for at least two reasons:

(1) it provides protection for life from high-energy particles originating from both cosmic rays and from our sun, and (2) it provides a shield preventing the depletion of our atmosphere from bombardment by the stream of charged particles ejected from the sun.

There are various reasons why this field has a role in the RTB creation model. One is that the longevity of the field is based on the earth having enough radioactive material to maintain its internal heating. This material is believed to have been enhanced by a Mars-sized collision in Earth’s early history that produced the moon, an impact that shows many features of having been designed. A second reason for the field’s importance in our creation model is the evidence it provides for an old Earth.

Several times over the past year we have featured research papers providing a deeper understanding of the mechanism responsible for the magnetic field of the earth. These reports included describing the computer simulations done by Glaztmier and Roberts,1 where they presented a model for the generation of the earth’s field that displayed a number of observed features, such as the pole reversal every few hundred thousand years. More recently we reported on the work of Monchaux and colleagues2,3, who were able to generate a field in the laboratory using liquid sodium that again modeled several important features observed in nature.

An even more recent paper by Tarduno et al. published in Nature 4 provides evidence for the presence of a magnetic field in the early Earth of a strength similar to what is found today. Using some of Earth’s oldest rocks, these researchers have detected evidence for magnetic fields as long as 3.2 billion years ago—500 million years before previously observed. This means that this protective shield was present when the earliest life-forms existed. It also means that the processes interior to the earth that produced this magnetic field were present very early in Earth’s history and have continued unabated for billions of years.

All of these reports provide growing support for the RTB model, and indicate our having a much better understanding of what is going on than is credited by the creationists who argue for a young Earth.

Endnotes
  1. Gary A. Glatzmaiers and Paul H. Roberts, “A Three-Dimensional Self-Consistent Computer Simulation of a Geomagnetic Field Reversal,” Nature 377 (1995): 203.
  2. R. Monchaux et al., “Generation of a Magnetic Field by Dynamo Action in a Turbulent Flow of Liquid Sodium,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 98 (2007): 044502.
  3. M. Berhanu et al., “Magnetic Field Reversals in an Experimental Turbulent Dynamo,” EPL, 77 (2007): 59001.
  4. John A.Tarduno et al., “Geomagnetic Field Strength 3.2 Billion Years Ago Recorded by Single Silicate Crystals,” Nature 446 (2007): 657.