A mathematical model for geomagnetic reversals

Duistermaat, J. J.

doi:10.1007/0-8176-4419-9_3

J. J. Duistermaat³

Part of the book series: Progress in Mathematics ((PM,volume 232))

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Abstract

The earth’s magnetic field has reversed its polarity many times in history, where the polarity of the magnetic field remained the same for very long time intervals, between about one hundred thousand years and many million years, whereas the reversals took place in a relatively short time interval of the order of magnitude of a thousand years. The lengths of time intervals between the subsequent reversals form an irregular sequence with a large variation, which make the reversals look like a (Poisson) stochastic process; see [7].

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Department of Mathematics, Utrecht University, Postbus 80 010, 3508 TA, Utrecht, The Netherlands
J. J. Duistermaat

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J. J. Duistermaat
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Editors and Affiliations

Department of Engineering and Applied Science Control and Dynamical Systems, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, 91125, USA
Jerrold E. Marsden
Département de Mathématiques, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, CH-1015, Lausanne, Switzerland
Tudor S. Ratiu

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Duistermaat, J.J. (2005). A mathematical model for geomagnetic reversals. In: Marsden, J.E., Ratiu, T.S. (eds) The Breadth of Symplectic and Poisson Geometry. Progress in Mathematics, vol 232. Birkhäuser Boston. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-8176-4419-9_3

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/0-8176-4419-9_3
Publisher Name: Birkhäuser Boston
Print ISBN: 978-0-8176-3565-7
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