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A geographical pole or geographic pole is either of the two points on Earth where its axis of rotation intersects its surface. [1]
However, modern geophysics organizations and pure scientists use a broader definition that includes the water cycle including snow and ice; fluid dynamics of the oceans and the atmosphere; electricity and magnetism in the ionosphere and magnetosphere and solar-terrestrial physics; and analogous problems associated with the Moon and other planets.
Visualization of the ice and snow covering Earth's northern and southern polar regions Northern Hemisphere permafrost (permanently frozen ground) in purple. The polar regions, also called the frigid zones or polar zones, of Earth are Earth's polar ice caps, the regions of the planet that surround its geographical poles (the North and South Poles), lying within the polar circles.
The North Pole, also known as the Geographic North Pole or Terrestrial North Pole, is the point in the Northern Hemisphere where Earth's axis of rotation meets its surface. This point is distinct from Earth's North Magnetic Pole. The South Pole is the other point where Earth's axis of rotation intersects its surface, in Antarctica.
A magnet's North pole is defined as the pole that is attracted by the Earth's North Magnetic Pole when the magnet is suspended so it can turn freely. Since opposite poles attract, the North Magnetic Pole of the Earth is really the south pole of its magnetic field (the place where the field is directed downward into the Earth). [20] [21] [22] [23]
As theorized by Isaac Newton and Christiaan Huygens, [3]: 4 the Earth is flattened at the poles and bulged at the equator. Thus, geodesy represents the figure of the Earth as an oblate spheroid . The oblate spheroid, or oblate ellipsoid , is an ellipsoid of revolution obtained by rotating an ellipse about its shorter axis.
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During a transition, the magnetic field will not vanish completely, but many poles might form chaotically in different places during reversal, until it stabilizes again. [ 23 ] [ 24 ] Studies of 16.7-million-year-old lava flows on Steens Mountain , Oregon, indicate that the Earth's magnetic field is capable of shifting at a rate of up to 6 ...