Does the Earth's Mantle Have a Magnetic Field?

Does the earth's mantle have a magnetic field?
- eno ikwen (age 31)
Calabar, Nigeria

That's an interesting question. The main magnetic field of the earth comes from electric currents in the liquid part of the core. Since we can measure a field from those here on the surface, the field must also penetrate the mantle, in between the core and the surface. Furthermore, the mantle contributes some field itself, since it contains magnetic materials that cooled in a field, and thus became permanent magnets.

The Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth's_magnetic_field has much more information. A problem with our editor keeps me from including an active link.)

Mike W.

(published on 06/23/2013)