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Could this time of field weakening and events such as cambrian explosion[0] be related? Does any human activity impact Earth's magnetic field directly or is it

Could this time of field weakening and events such as cambrian explosion[0] be related? Does any human activity impact Earth's magnetic field directly or is it irrelevant at this scale? Activity like mining metals out of the planet, large amounts of construction. Movement of metal in ways of air planes and vehicles. If molten magma is the source of our magnetic field and the earth slowly spews out lava over time, is it causing out magnetic field to weaken over time? This might be slightly offtopic but what do you make of the concept that magnetic fields and global warming might be associated? [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian_explosion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambrian_explosion [1] https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006AGUFMGP51B..02F/abstract https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2006AGUFMGP51B..02F/abstra...

hoorayimhelping 6y ago
I thought the Cambrian explosion was more closely related to the oxidization of the atmosphere by pond scum. Free oxygen becoming available in the atmosphere for organisms to use allowed the formation of collagen and chitin, both of which are necessary to form the large structures complex life needs, and also allowed for more efficient breathing, which allowed for larger and more complex life.
- btilly 6y ago
  Interesting. The theory that I heard was that it was the end of "snowball earth" that drove it. But https://www.nature.com/news/what-sparked-the-cambrian-explosion-1.19379 https://www.nature.com/news/what-sparked-the-cambrian-explos... suggests that your version is better supported by current research.
- lopmotr 6y ago
  That word oxidization or oxidation is really misleading! It's not that the atmosphere was oxidized but the opposite - CO2 was reduced to produce free oxygen molecules. I think it should be called "oxygenation" instead.
SkyBelow 6y ago
The disparity in the magnitudes of energy involved should mean human activity has a negligible effect. When you consider how massive earth is, how massive the core is, and how much energy it takes for the core to have the angular momentum it currently does, what few things we are doing to the crust aren't relevant except in very localized areas that do not extend to the height of these satellites.
Hendrikto 6y ago
> Activity like mining metals out of the planet, large amounts of construction. Movement of metal in ways of air planes and vehicles. That is ENTIRELY insignificant, and not even worth mentioning. The deepest hole humans have ever been able to create was about 12km deep. That is less than 0.18% of the earth‘s radius. Human activity is limited to the upper parts of earth‘s crust, which is itself only a fraction of earth. Magnetism happens WAAAAAY deeper.
- freeflight 6y ago
  > Human activity is limited to the upper parts of earth‘s crust, which is itself only a fraction of earth. Magnetism happens WAAAAAY deeper. But doesn't that assume that metal/mineral deposits closer to the surface, or at the surface, those that humanity has mostly exploited, do have no effect at all? What if surface deposits and those closer to it act as some kind of "coating" leading to slight changes in dynamics we still don't understand or might not even realize yet actually exist? When we are very much like ants: In the singular seemingly insignificant, a single ant would never be seen as capable as "harvesting" any bigger animal carcass. Yet the scale and endurance of these ants make it possible for them to slowly pick apart something that would normally consider them quite insignificant in their actions, very much like we've been doing for a very long time. In that context, I'm kinda skeptical about how often the impact of human activity is belittled as supposedly having an "insignificant" contribution to global-scale environmental changes. Reminds me way too much about how climate change is to this day still argued as something "natural", and many past human activities that were declared "safe and inconsequential" at the time, ended up still having very real lasting and global effects, like atmospheric nuclear weapon tests. It makes me wonder how much of that argument is connected to religious beliefs along the lines of "Humans could never seriously threaten or impact God's creation, and if we do, then God intended for it to do so", which sometimes manifests in weird ways like considering environmentalism as a form of "native evil" [0] [0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2011/may/05/evangelical-christian-environmentalism-green-dragon https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2011/may/05/eva...
  - oefnak 6y ago
    How would that work? All metals we harvested, we moved maybe a few kilometres higher.

hoorayimhelping 6y ago

I thought the Cambrian explosion was more closely related to the oxidization of the atmosphere by pond scum. Free oxygen becoming available in the atmosphere for organisms to use allowed the formation of collagen and chitin, both of which are necessary to form the large structures complex life needs, and also allowed for more efficient breathing, which allowed for larger and more complex life.

btilly 6y ago
Interesting. The theory that I heard was that it was the end of "snowball earth" that drove it. But https://www.nature.com/news/what-sparked-the-cambrian-explosion-1.19379 https://www.nature.com/news/what-sparked-the-cambrian-explos... suggests that your version is better supported by current research.
lopmotr 6y ago
That word oxidization or oxidation is really misleading! It's not that the atmosphere was oxidized but the opposite - CO2 was reduced to produce free oxygen molecules. I think it should be called "oxygenation" instead.

SkyBelow 6y ago

The disparity in the magnitudes of energy involved should mean human activity has a negligible effect. When you consider how massive earth is, how massive the core is, and how much energy it takes for the core to have the angular momentum it currently does, what few things we are doing to the crust aren't relevant except in very localized areas that do not extend to the height of these satellites.

Hendrikto 6y ago

> Activity like mining metals out of the planet, large amounts of construction. Movement of metal in ways of air planes and vehicles. That is ENTIRELY insignificant, and not even worth mentioning. The deepest hole humans have ever been able to create was about 12km deep. That is less than 0.18% of the earth‘s radius. Human activity is limited to the upper parts of earth‘s crust, which is itself only a fraction of earth. Magnetism happens WAAAAAY deeper.

freeflight 6y ago
> Human activity is limited to the upper parts of earth‘s crust, which is itself only a fraction of earth. Magnetism happens WAAAAAY deeper. But doesn't that assume that metal/mineral deposits closer to the surface, or at the surface, those that humanity has mostly exploited, do have no effect at all? What if surface deposits and those closer to it act as some kind of "coating" leading to slight changes in dynamics we still don't understand or might not even realize yet actually exist? When we are very much like ants: In the singular seemingly insignificant, a single ant would never be seen as capable as "harvesting" any bigger animal carcass. Yet the scale and endurance of these ants make it possible for them to slowly pick apart something that would normally consider them quite insignificant in their actions, very much like we've been doing for a very long time. In that context, I'm kinda skeptical about how often the impact of human activity is belittled as supposedly having an "insignificant" contribution to global-scale environmental changes. Reminds me way too much about how climate change is to this day still argued as something "natural", and many past human activities that were declared "safe and inconsequential" at the time, ended up still having very real lasting and global effects, like atmospheric nuclear weapon tests. It makes me wonder how much of that argument is connected to religious beliefs along the lines of "Humans could never seriously threaten or impact God's creation, and if we do, then God intended for it to do so", which sometimes manifests in weird ways like considering environmentalism as a form of "native evil" [0] [0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2011/may/05/evangelical-christian-environmentalism-green-dragon https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2011/may/05/eva...
- oefnak 6y ago
  How would that work? All metals we harvested, we moved maybe a few kilometres higher.