Morphology of geomagnetic reversals

Geophysicists from the United States have been very active in the international effort to understand the nature of the geomagnetic field during polarity reversals. The traditional justification of this research, that knowledge of transitional field behavior may eventually help constrain theoretical geomagnetic dynamo models, remains compelling. But in addition, the paleomagnetic observation and modeling of transitional field behavior has developed a life of its own. Two recent discoveries, that many organisms navigate using the geomagnetic field (e.g., Blakemore and Frankel [1981]) and that the magnetic field of Uranus may be in the midst of a polarity change [Ness et al., 1986], have even begun to stimulate public interest in geomagnetic reversals. Both authors of this report have been pleasantly surprised at the interest expressed by non‐scientists when conversations have somehow drifted onto the topics of our research.