Overview
- Researchers report two Eocene polarity transitions in North Atlantic cores, one about 18,000 years and another about 70,000 years.
- The peer‑reviewed results, published in Nature Communications Earth & Environment, come from a Japan‑France‑U.S. team led by Yuhji Yamamoto with co‑author Peter Lippert.
- Sediment layers retrieved in a 2012 Integrated Ocean Drilling Program expedition off Newfoundland preserved a continuous, high‑resolution magnetic record.
- The findings align with geodynamo simulations that predict occasional drawn‑out transitions, with some modeled scenarios extending to roughly 130,000 years.
- Scientists note the planet has seen roughly 540 flips over 170 million years and a ~10% field decline in two centuries, yet the data do not signal an imminent reversal.