For 540 million years, the ebb and the river in the strength of the earth's magnetic field correlated with fluctuations in the atmospheric oxygen after a newly released analysis by NASA scientists. Research suggests that processes could influence the habitability on the surface of the planet deep in the earth.
The magnetic field of the earth arises from the material flow in the melted interior of the planet, which acts like a huge electromagnet. The river is not perfectly stable, and this means that the field changes over time.
Many scientists have argued that the magnetic field is crucial to protect the atmosphere from delegating energetic particles from the sun. However, the authors of the study in scientific advances show that the role of magnetic fields in the preservation of the atmosphere is an area of active research. Before the complexity of the cause-effect relationship between magnetic fields and oxygen levels was treated, the authors of the study decided whether the magnetic field and the atmosphere of the earth fluctuate in a way that shows a connection.
The history of the magnetic fields of the earth is recorded in magnetized minerals. If hot minerals with magma rise between the cooling of the tectonic plates, you can record the surrounding magnetic field. The minerals keep the field record as long as they are not heated too much. Scientists can hand over the historical oxygen content from old rocks and minerals, since their chemical content depends on the amount of oxygen that is available in the form formed. The data for the magnetic field of the earth and oxygen extends over comparable areas to databases that have compiled countless geophysicists and geochemists. So far, the authors of the new study said that no scientists had made a detailed comparison of the records.
“These two data records are very similar,” said Co -author Weijia Kuang, geophysicist at the Goddard Space Flight Center of NASA in Greenbelt, Maryland. “The earth is the only known planet that supports complex life. The correlations we have found could help us understand how life develops and how it is associated with the internal processes of the planet.”
When Kuang and colleagues analyzed the two separate data records, they found that the planetary magnetic field has tracked similar rising and falling patterns as oxygen in the atmosphere for almost half a billion years, which went back to the camber explosion as a complex life on earth.
“This correlation increases the possibility that both the magnetic field strength and the atmospheric oxygen level react to a single underlying process, such as the movement of the earth's continents,” said Study Co author Benjamin Mills, a biogeochemist at the University of Leeds.
The researchers hope to investigate longer data records to determine whether the correlation extends in time. They also plan to examine the historical abundance of other chemicals that for life as we know them, like nitrogen that are important to determine whether they also support these patterns. As for the specific causes that combine the deep interior of the earth with life on the surface, Kopparapu said: “There is more work to find out.”
Magazine:
Science Advances – Link: 10.1126/Sciadv.adu8826
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