Solar Typhoons and Massive Earth Crust Displacement

A Hypothesis by Jared Freedman

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After much research, I wrote this article to present my ideas, and I hope you, the educated reader, will join in the discussion.  The following sections take you through a journey that includes many areas of science, some of which might be unfamiliar. A brief primer is presented in this next section, and should provide the background information necessary to judge the hypothesis.   

Solar-Terrestrial Physics 101

The Sun is a complex system.  It is a nuclear dynamo that baths the Earth in a wide spectrum of energy.  Most of the energy strikes the Earth as sunlight and heat.  It is estimated that on a normal day, 95% of the energy is transmitted this way.  The other 5% strike the Earth as a stream of charged particles, called the Solar Wind, and is responsible for all Space Weather.

The Earth is also a complex system.  It has a rotating iron core that generates an intense magnetic field, usually 50 times stronger than the field created by the Sun.  At the source, the Sun’s field is much stronger than the Earth’s field, but the magnetic force, like gravity, decreases in power with the inverse square law.  By the time the field has reached the Earth, the force has decreased dramatically.

Beyond the core,  classical theories of Geology then go on to identify several more layers. The molten outer core, made of iron and nickel, spins at a slightly slower rotational velocity than the inner core, and is believed to contain convection currents.  Next is the mantle, which is composed of mostly solid silicate material, and also is believed to contain convection currents.  Lastly comes the crust, the thin solid piece that is anywhere from 6 – 40 kilometers deep.  The crust and the upper portion of the mantle are separated by a zone called the Mohorovicic Discontinuity (or Moho), which marks the transition of state between crust and mantle.  The Moho is of key importance to this hypothesis, and will be treated in detail in a later section.  The crust, the Moho, and the upper part of the Mantle, which all contain fractures and faults, are collectively called the lithosphere. An image of a cross-section of the Earth is presented below:

earthcutaway.gif (33585 bytes)

The magnetic field created by the Earth projects up to 60,000 kilometers into space, and this projection is called the Magnetosphere.  An artist representation of the magnetosphere is presented below:

The yellow lines represent the solar wind, and the blue represents the magnetosphere.   The red rings represent the radiation belt and ring currents.  As you can see, the solar wind compresses the leading side (sunward) of the magnetosphere, and stretches the tailing side.  The boundary of the magnetic field is called the magnetopause, and logically enough, the tailing side is called the magnetotail.

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 Copyright © 2001 Jared Freedman