I do not think it really matters what causes it

a reply to: Phage

You know, when I first joined ATS I found people like you very intimidating. These days I realise that you drop enough information for someone to inform themselves. You do tend to be precise and concise.

It's commendable.

Anyways an on topic question.

As far as I know, no information exists on how long a magnetic flip may take to occur. All we have is records of what lived before and after a magnetic flip, as far as I know no mass extinctions or deaths happened due to a changing of the poles.

That being said, cancer is a chance game. Most living things are capable of breeding fairly young or quick if you will. Even humans with our long development time can be breeding in 10 years... Even die naturally by 30. The point I'm making is does cancer really affect the natural world when a species can be on the third generation by the time we hit 20?

I guess I don't really have a question, I'm hardly being concise.

A 50 year flip process would probably be deadly for humans, whales, elephants and other creatures with a reasonably long life span, everything else would do ok even if cancers claimed half of them.

I don't think any decent information exists on the subject, potentially it could be deadly for us as a species, would you agree?

a reply to: Phage

Again, you are right. My apologies.

Well, from what aviators claim, there's a 40 mile magnetic drift every year they have to calibrate planes for. I guess to find out how much longer it would be before a complete reversal took place, you'd have to measure the distance between where magnetic north and south is now and divide it by forty... Not sure if that's sound, but that's what it would seem to me.
As far as the magnetic field decreasing, this has been something that has been of some concern for the last 100+ years from what I can gather.