Geophysics items

The world's collective reservoirs are speeding up the Earth's rate of spin and changing the shape of Earth's magnetic field, according to NASA geophysicist Dr. Benjamin Fong Chao.

Sources: "Dams alter Earth's orbit, scientist says" in Ottawa Citizen, March 3/1996, pg. D8 (based on) Malcolm W. Browne's late Feb./early March '96 report in the New York Times.

the earth's field will deflect solar wind ions to the right
...the earth?s magnetic field is continually bathed in a hot, magnetized, supersonic collisionless plasma capable of conducting electrical current and carrying a large amount of kinetic and electrical energy.

Because of the polarity of the earth?s field, [the magnetic force on a particle] will deflect solar wind ions to the right and electrons to the left as they approach the earth.

The Earth?s Ionosphere: Plasma Physics and Electrodynamics, Michael C. Kelley, Academic Press, HBJ, San Diego, page 13

Open Field Lines in the Polar Cap

The geomagnetic field lines in the polar caps are shown inn Fig. 1 and 11 as going though the polar magnetopause as a rotational discontinuity, into the high latitude magnetosheath, through the bow shock intothe interplanetary medium; this is what is meant by open field lines. Maxwell?s equations require that the same amount of open flux appear at both poles.

Magnetospheric Topology of Fields and Currents, Walter J. Heikkila, Magnetospheric Currents, Am. Geophys. Union, 1984, page 208 et seq.

Magnetic disturbances can preceed sunspots by a couple of days...

Handbook of Geophysics, revised edition, USAF et al, Macmillan, New York, 1960, page 10-6

Magnetic minerals

Mineral Resources of the Jordan Craters Wilderness Study Area, Malheur County, Oregon

Is the Schumann resonance increasing?

Gravity Wave Research Project

Geophysics, Gravity and Magnetism