A fast-moving feature of westward drift

Abstract

he dominant feature in the magnetic declination record at all European sites for which adequate data are available is a minimum between 1750 and 1860. The time of minimum at different sites correlates well with longitude and implies a westward drift rate of 0.61 ± 0.08° yr-1. This is greatly in excess of the widely adopted value of 0.18° yr-1 for global westward drift.

Keywords

• Geomagnetic field
• westward drift