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Radiocarbon from a 42,000-year-old kauri tree in New Zealand helped unravel Earth’s last magnetic upheaval. JONATHAN PALMER
Ancient kauri trees capture last collapse of Earth’s magnetic field
Feb. 18, 2021 , 2:00 PM
Several years ago, workers breaking ground for a power plant in New Zealand unearthed a record of a lost time: a 60-ton trunk from a kauri tree, the largest tree species in New Zealand. The tree, which grew 42,000 years ago, was preserved in a bog and its rings spanned 1700 years, capturing a tumultuous time when the world was turned upside down at least magnetically speaking.
Radiocarbon levels in this and several other pieces of wood chart a surge in radiation from space, as Earth’s protective magnetic field weakened and its poles flipped, a team of scientists reports today in
Friday, 19 February 2021, 8:29 am
A new international study using ancient swamp kauri from
Northland shows a temporary breakdown of Earth’s magnetic
field 42,000 years ago sparked major climate shifts leading
to global environmental change and mass
extinctions.
This dramatic turning point in Earth’s
history was triggered by a reversal of Earth’s magnetic
poles and changing solar winds.
Study authors from
UNSW Sydney, the South Australian Museum, NIWA and the
University of Waikato, dubbed this episode the ‘Adams
Transitional Geomagnetic Event’, or ‘Adams Event’ for
short - a tribute to science fiction writer Douglas Adams,
who wrote in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy that
Earth s magnetic field flipping linked to extinctions 42,000 years ago newscientist.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from newscientist.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Now a remote expedition to a large inland salt lake in 2017 has sifted through remains unearthed in Namba Formation deposits to describe a tiny new skink, an ancestor of Australia s well-known bluetongue lizards - to be named in honour of world-renown Flinders University lizard researcher Professor Mike Bull.
The new species, unveiled in the Royal Society s Open Science today, is described as Australia s oldest - a 25 million-year-old skink named Proegernia mikebulli after the late Flinders University Professor Mike Bull.
It was found by Flinders University and South Australian Museum palaeontologists and volunteers at a rich fossil site on Lake Pinpa located on the 602,000 square hectare Frome Downs Station, seven hours drive north of capital city Adelaide.
Franchesca Cubillo
FORMER senior curator of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art at the National Gallery of Australia (NGA), Franchesca Cubillo, has today (February 17) been named the new executive director of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts at the Australia Council.
A former Churchill Fellow, Cubillo has also worked at the South Australian Museum, the National Museum of Australia, and the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory.
She is also the inaugural chair of the Darwin Aboriginal Art Fair Foundation and inaugural co-chair of the National Aboriginal Art Gallery in Alice Springs.
A Yanuwa, Larrakia, Bardi, and Wardaman woman from a well-known top end family in the Northern Territory, Cubillo replaces long-time director Lydia Miller, who will leave the council after more than 20 years.