An ancient tree contains a record of the reversal of Earth's magnetic field in its rings

A 40,000-year-old tree that construction workers unintentionally dug up will help scientists understand what will happen when Earth's magnetic poles reverse, as they are already beginning to happen.

Earth's north and south magnetic poles alternate every 200,000 to 300,000 years, allowing solar radiation to reach the planet and also coinciding with major extinction events.

This type of adventure was long overdue, considering that the last pole reversal took place 780,000 years ago.

NASA issued a warning earlier this year that a complete pole reversal is about to occur, as the magnetic "north pole" moves 30 miles per year toward Russia.

Climate scientists now better understand precisely what a near pole reversal 42,000 years ago would entail thanks to the discovery of a tree that lived for 1,500 years during that time.

While building a geothermal power plant in New Zealand, construction workers discovered the ancient tree buried under 26 feet of soil.

The swamp kauri tree, despite not actually being in a swamp, remained as if it were.

Among the oldest trees ever discovered is this one. The radioactive carbon in the tree's rings, which measure 65 feet long and 8 feet wide, provides a complete record of the nearly complete reversal of Earth's magnetic fields that occurred over the tree's life.

According to Newsweek, "Earth's magnetic field is believed to be generated by iron in the planet's core." It generates electrical currents that travel a long distance as it moves. The Earth is protected from the solar wind by the magnetic field.

"The magnetic field weakens when it reverses or attempts to reverse, allowing more solar radiation to pass through."

According to Alan Hogg of the University of Waikato in New Zealand, "there's nothing like it anywhere in the world," he told Stuff Magazine. "Using tree rings, we will be able to map these changes much more accurately."

The magnetic field's ability to protect humans from solar radiation is weakened as a result of line crossings and jumbles caused by the poles shifting back and forth, which could take thousands of years.

Furthermore, they have already been traveling for 3,000 years.

Scientists are working feverishly to develop models to determine what it will actually look like in practice. Your efforts will be helped by this tree.

"As Earth's magnetic shield fails, so do its satellites," writes Jonathan O'Callaghan, space journalist for Phys.org.

First, our company's communications satellites in higher orbits lose power. Therefore, astronauts in low Earth orbit lose the ability to contact home. Finally, all the inhabitants of Earth begin to be bombarded by cosmic rays. We may start addressing this issue in the next hundred years rather than a million or a thousand years from now.