Magnetic deposits laid down during the Ediacaran Period, 630 million years ago to 541 million years ago, are not inexplicable fluctuations, some researchers argue. Instead, there is a pattern encoded in the rocks of Morocco’s Anti-Atlas Mountains consistent with rapid shifts in the planet’s magnetic field. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

The Earth’s magnetic field is stable enough that people used it to guide compasses until we invented GPS, but it’s not perfectly fixed. We can trace the wanderings of the north and south magnetic poles, moving up to 60 kilometers (36 miles) a year , and we know from magnetic records in rocks that in the past the poles have flipped many times, providing geologists with valuable tools

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