OCR Text |
Show Earth's field of magnetism to be discussed The source of the earth's magnetic field and what it means to all forms of plant and animal life will be discussed Wednesday night at the University of Utah by a world authority on the subject. Dr. Leroy R. Allredge, director of the Earth Sciences Laboratories of the U. S. Environmental Science Service Administration, Boulder, Colo., will speak in Mark H. Greene Hall in the Business Lecture Building at 8 p.m. Admission will be free. Dr. Alldredge, who also serves as secretary and director of the Central Bureau of the International Association of Geomagnetism and Aeirnomy, has studied the magnetic field most of his life. Geophysicists have discovered that earth magnetism continually changes and eventually reverses poles. There have been 171 flip-flops of the magnetic field in the last 76 million years. Dr. Alldredge is expected to tell his audience just what a reversal would do to earth life. Some researches have said the earth would be vulnerable to cosmic radiation during the period when I there would be no magnetic field. Dr. Alldredge's Utah appearance is sponsored by the American Geophysical Union under a grant from the National Science Foundation. Wednesday night's lecture will be at a joint meeting with the Utah Geological Society. Dr. Alldredge will also speak Thursday at 3:30 p.m. in the Mines building, Room 322, on the U campus. |