PHOENIX FIVE EARTH CHANGES BULLETIN

Please Note: This Bulletin is conceived as a System. It is still in an early stage of evolution. We intend to progressively link into this synopsis system all of the major news feeds of Planet Earth which articulate aspects of the profound historical Change In The Earth which is underway.

Earth Changes Bulletin Update As Of May 4 2005

You have heard of the Weather Report? Here exclusively is this week’s "Earth Report" - a short review of the "big picture" about how the dynamic changes in the Sun and the Earth are effecting our lives more and more intensely, with the latest prognostications and predictions for weathermen, farmers, investors, businessmen, and every man.

NEW LINK FOR THE NEW Earth Changes Bulletin Almanac & Updates Archive. USE THIS NEW HOME PAGE TO ACCESS THE ARCHIVES OF WEEKLY UPDATES, SPECIAL REPORTS, AND THE NEW ALMANAC.

You may click here for the full text of the Earth Changes Bulletin Update for this week, or use this URL

http://www.michaelmandeville.com/earthmonitor/ecbulletins/2005/ecb_May_4_05.htm

Tectonic danger is probably waning at the current time. Even so, continue to maintain vigilance especially for St. Helen, Etna, & Vesuvius through to July 2005.

FOR THIS YEAR OF THE GATHERING EMERGENCE:

On the geophysical front, at the current time activity at the solar level of our vast Vortex is increasing (sunspots = 79 as of May 3) and should be up and down often for the next 50 days while a new sequence of planetary alignments culminate near the Summer Solstice to produce a major spike in solar activity during the second and third weeks of June. No major disturbances are expected by any source for at least the next few days but the Sun managed a spectacular coronal mass ejection two days ago which should not be missed (see below under Solar Activity). Weather patterns should receive another round of energization during the next week and then normalize into Spring syndrome by the last half of May and early June. Seismic activity was muted in magnitude and frequency world wide with only one quake 6.0 in mag or above. Six shape-shifters struck in the Great Rifts of the ocean bottoms, perhaps signalling a settling down of the adjustments for the Indo-Trench rupture on December 25, 2005. World volcanism decreased by approximately 20% during the past 10 days and most of the current activity is just barely "slow cooking" in some 25 volcanoes which are emitting small amounts of gas and ash, but very little lava, if any. More probable than not, NO El Nino for this year. The movement of the Earth's crust relative to the North Spin Axis – Chandler's Wobble – HAS SORT OF NORMALIZED. The danger period is probably gone but continue to watch the tea leaves of sudden tectonic rupture on the North American West Coast. And watch the volcanoes – another surge in world volcanism IS STILL LIKELY worldwide to increase by July during the next three months. Many surprises may be in store for this year.

On the geopolitical front, as previously observed (nothing much new this week) Kookiness has seized complete control of Washington DC, but this only puts the coming tragi-farce of the American political meltdown into starker, more obvious relief. All conditions as projected by this writer and most of the populist press are accelerating at a brisk pace. Bush's policies are nearly universally rejected around the world, brutal operations procedures and war doctrines, not to mention incompetence and pervasive denial and lying, are steadily destroying the fragments of what was left of the legitimacy of the American Military Machine, Eurasian and Oil Producer alliances are forming up tightly to begin a world campaign to restrain and block the Imperial Faction, Venezuela and Iran are making arrangements, Syria is craftily setting up Israel and the U.S. to collide with Hezbollah, which is the most dominant force in Lebanon, and Putin is bidding to create an Eurasian peace process for the Mid East, the U.S. be damned. Meanwhile, international inflation of commodity prices IN DOLLAR terms is accelerating briskly and will bring in the next recession-becoming-depression sometime in 2006, the strong U.S. domestic pressure and ultra easy credit to increase the size of the East Coast Boomer Bubble is AT peak. EVERY WHERE BEARS RULE AND BULLS ARE IN RETREAT, the DJIA will not crack 11,000 DJIA and appears to be already skating towards the big skid for the Big Dump in 2006. The Democratic Faux Centrists and Clintonistas are folding solidly into an acutely sad, uncomfortable sack of metooism with the Imperial Faction, revealing clearly who they are, meanwhile of course the most extreme cold war hawks and right wing fascists in North America have seized control of all agencies of the U.S. Government. The Mass Hysteria Broadcast Media is busy

diverting everyone's attention with a never-ending stream of completely irrelevant did-he-do-it soap operas while the plutocrats continue to steal all sensibility from Planet Earth - all domestic programs and regulations are being bludgeoned and blackjacked daily in the alleys of Washington DC by the plutocrats and their agents while a super-sized IMPERIAL BONUS in being prepared for the American People: PLANS STILL APPEAR TO BE WELL UNDERWAY to mobilize the drive to destroy the independent culture and government of Iran, all the better to seize complete hegemony of the Persian Gulf oil fields and force the world to consume the PETRO-DOLLAR and the American Imperial Machine. And so it goes. YOU WILL NEED TO WHINE MUCH LOUDER lest you soon be floating in a sea of oil you can no longer afford to buy because a couple million conscripted Central Americans are busy fighting in the Middle East under your flag to eradicate all opposition to the Great American Dream of Bush Inc.

Go to detailed synopsis…

NOTES

Grayed items are not yet operational

Program Thesis:

What are we trying to do with the Earth Changes Bulletin?

Most news media do not handle technical and scientific subjects like geology and earth sciences very well. They don't understand the causes and effects of activities in the Sun and Earth. Accordingly, they often do not understand if, when, how, why to report earthquakes, volcanic activity, global warming effects The treatment often sounds absent-minded, poorly qualified, and frequently contains various technical errors. Seldom is the treatment entertaining and genuinely educational.

Based on new scientific principles which have emerged during the past thirty years, many of the dynamic activities of the Sun and Earth can be linked together to see how a range of effects are linked together. This makes it possible to paint "the big picture" into a perspective which explains many diverse events and processes, especially climate and weather patterns such as global warming and El Nino. From the "big picture", long range predictions can be made for weeks and even months ahead. The result is sophisticated cutting-edge information which is objective, balanced, astute, relevant, and can be easily seen and appreciated by lay audiences. The perspective is generally global, seldom parochial. For the framework of concepts, terms, and current conditions which are used or described in the these Bulletins, see the Earth Changes 2003 Almanac Calendar.

To see the internet resources which are used to prepare this Update, take a look at the Earth Monitor front page - http://www.michaelmandeville.com/earthmonitor/

The Bulletin is written in Arizona (UTC +8 hours) so any relative references, such as "Today", or "Tomorrow", or "Yesterday" should generally to taken to refer to the day spans as experienced in Western North America.

PREVIOUS
WEEKLY

UPDATES

Nov 24 not available as of this date

COMING LATE SPRING IN WEEKLY INSTALLMENTS:

UPDATE PREDICTIONS FOR 2005 – 2012 and through "The Tribulations"

go to the Earth Changes Almanac

A systematic synopsis is being assembled which succinctly outlines predictions for the period 2005 – 2012 and through the period of what the Q’ero call the Pachacuti and the Hopi call the "Great Purification" (also known as the "Time of Troubles" or "The Tribulations". This outline will update the predictions in "The Coming Economic Collapse of 2006" and the "Return of the Phoenix", mainly by confirming the general plot line and by adding more details which carry the predictions well beyond 2006-2008.

I have just consumed four books and many iway articles and websites the past few weeks to prepare for this. For a variety of reasons, the final keys for putting together the final plot line of the Fourth Age and the most probable key signals are now being brought forward into my consciousness in a way which will allow me to describe them clearly and specifically to the world. Due to many issues, the greater bulk of this material shall not be openly available directly on the internet. Access to most of the predictions will be made available through paid annual subscriptions. Because of the strategic seriousness of some of the predictions, some I will only make available through mouth and ear in private seminars. I will begin to advise of this material through the EC Bulletins and through Alex Merklinger’s radio program

PRELIMINARY FINDING: (based on the integration of several credible psychic sources)

We have perhaps as little as 1.5 years but possibly up to 5 years before the first wave of "The Upheavals" – the long predicted rupturing of the crust along the West Coast of North America. This will terminate the American Empire and consummate the final stages of a continental civic struggle, a virtual civil war (but one without armies), which will have begun as a consequence of the economic collapse during 2006-07. Several waves of catastrophic ruptures in various locations of the crust will follow over some 20-25 years. These ruptures will create opportunities for wars in Eurasia which are not restrained by the Western powers and serious efforts will be made by regional coalitions to "conquer" the greater part of Eurasia. These waves of Upheavals and raving human irrationality will progressively degrade and finally destroy existing human cultures and nations. The final flight of the Phoenix to a new polar axis orientation for the Fifth Age Of Human Memory will occur some 10-20 years after the first Upheaval in Western North America. Thereafter, for up to 3000 years, tectonic activity, especially in the form of volcanism, will remain at heightened levels, creating many peak CENTURIES of volcanic activity which are 100-1000 times higher than current levels.

SPONSORING:

THE COMING ECONOMIC COLLAPSE OF 2006, which puts today, tomorrow, and the trends together into the Cayce 25 year economic cycle which will "bottom" in 2006/2007. Click here to download

THIS BOOK STILL COOKS AND IT WILL COOK THE POLITICIANS AND THE ECONOMY ALL THE WAY THROUGH TO 2008: This synthesis is far ahead of the daily digests in all halls of the internet media: so far (since May 2003) the track record on this set of predictions for 2003-2008 is running 100 per cent. If you have not purchased this book, you will remain ignorant of the main dynamics which are rapidly changing everything.

LATEST UPDATE NOTE AS OF May 4, 2005:

All economic and political conditions continue to deteriorate at an accelerating rate. The Bush Administration has little support for any of its initiatives and Washington DC appears to be sinking into a paralysis of collective incompetence. Internationally the war/peace situation continues to improve. Iraq may now begin to stabilize under Shi'a leadership unless disrupted by CIA machinations and it is increasingly unlikely that the Imperial Faction can consolidate enough support to mount attacks against Iran and Syria. If so, the Petro-Dollar will progressively decline in value in a gradual let-down during the next year, perhaps by another 10% relative to the Euro and perhaps by another 20% relative to oil.

LATEST UPDATE NOTE AS OF NOVEMBER 17, 2004:

As per stated below, the bubble is re-inflating for a few more weeks or even months if Al Qaeda does not attack. Oil prices are dropping as stocks and equities firm up and the economy continues expansion with the expectation that American Imperialism will continue (unfortunately) to drive international events during 2005. BEWARE SUDDEN REVERSALS WHEN ALQAEDA STRIKES. BEWARE THE EMERGING SUPER-COALITION IN EURASIA WHICH WILL PROGRESSIVELY UNDERCUT THE AMERICAN DOLLAR DURING 2005, GENERALLY IN A MEASURED WAY WHICH AVOIDS SUDDEN PANIC. This is not a hostile action, it is a sensible reaction of the world to the vast over-reach of America’s Imperial Pretenders. This will produce a strong trend of basic price inflation in the U.S. as basic material commodity prices and the cost of imported goods continue to rise. The world WILL solve the Balance of Payments problem, mainly by raising the dollar costs of imports beyond the means of Americans to purchase them.

ALL DATES AND TIMES USED IN THE EARTH CHANGES BULLETIN ARE NOW UTC = Universal Time Constant, previously known as Greenwich Mean Time.

HOUSEKEEPING

WE ARE STILL IN AN AWKWARD STAGE WITH THE BULLETINS. MUCH PROGRESS HAS BEEN MADE IN COMPLETELY REDEFINING THE BULLETIN, MONITOR, ALMANAC, AND WEBSITE, BUT SO FAR IT IS ALL INVISIBLE. THE NEW SCHEMA WILL BE INTRODUCED DURING MARCH – MAY.

We are halfway into a process which will combine an almanac structure with the weekly updates. I intend a three tier Bulletin/Almanac Archive: a weekly newsletter which is shorter than present, an archive of the Weekly Updates in web pages, and a deeper core structure which is like an Almanac, encompassing years, major references, explanations of all the details, and outlines for many years in advance of various predictions and concerns. To this core we will link the Updates and around the entire business we will add a variety of news feeds and tightly focused discussion forums. From these news feeds, some items in summary form will appear in the Updates. It will take a couple of months yet to shape this up to where I will truly want it to be.

Today you can finally access an update of the past year's bulletins and the beginning of an annual forecast for 2005. Click here for the new access point to the current new home page for the Earth Changes Bulletin Almanac & Archive

MANDEVILLE IS ON THE RADIO EVERY WEDNESDAY WITH

Alex Merklinger (Millennium Radio) show at 7 PM Arizona Time (6 PM Pacific Time). Regular Weekly Update For The Earth Changes Bulletin. To find Iway archives and stations, see Millennium Radio Network

Begin Synopsis

As stated in the "Coming Economic Collapse of 2006", the nature of human politics reflects the communication abilities of the human species. As we transform the media, as we have been on the Iway, we will transform human politics and the entire Earth. Making the way for the New Earth is operationally equivalent to making a new Media on the Iway. Not that that is all that there is to it. Not by a long shot…but IT IS one of the essentials we need to dissolve the blockages and dance around the tyrannies.

SPIRITUAL WATCH

How to converge and express the spirit of mass transformation into manifestation, HOW to be, IS the question. How to do is the praxis of the time. Examining this question, probing it, is the chief trendline of this year.

BREAKING NEWS:

FOR WINTER 2005:

All forces, BOTH DARK AND LIGHT, seem to be gathering and abiding at the moment….

Many things and events are being set in motion but very little is currently visible on the surface as people busy themselves re-arranging the deck chairs of the Titanic.

The loony Imperial Faction clearly is on a course for a massive confrontation with the Iceberg of history. They have consummated almost a complete takeover of the National government, all that remains are two Supreme Court Justice appointments.

None of us will escape the titanic struggle for the soul of America and history which will emerge this year and next.

There is underway very rapid progress on all internal spiritual and psychic development issues. THOSE WHO MEDITATE ARE TUNING INTO INCREASING ENERGY LEVELS AND MAJOR TRANSFORMATIONS OF HOW THEIR CHAKRAS BALANCE AND WORK. Much of this transformation is not very describable as it involves shifts in how our personal "holographic" field is experienced.

DIET IS EXCEPTIONALLY IMPORTANT AS EVER BUT EVEN MORE SO FOR THOSE WHOSE UPPER CHAKRAS ARE OPENING and energize. As they energize, the body begins to reject more militantly the load of industrial chemistry which now adulterates the greater bulk of American grocery store food items.

What to do about it is very complex and differs for nearly all people. But here is a shot gun approach which is probably very helpful for a great many If you are having an increased load of health issues, drop prepackaged food out of your diet AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, fix from scratch with items as pure as possible, eat mega doses of sodium acerbate (Vitamin C) or from natural sources such as rose hips, and MAKE SURE YOU TAKE IN NO COOKING OILS EXCEPT FROM OLIVE OIL. OLIVE OIL IS A GIFT FROM THE GODS AND HAS ALSO BEEN DEMONSTRATED TO DECREASE CANCER AND/OR SLOW DOWN ITS REPLICATION IN THE BODY.

Interior channels have energized and nearly everyone I talk to relays similar experiences of new channels or access to new awareness of imagery or feelings or knowledge opening up. A step-function in personal maturity has been experienced, along with increased personal vibrancy. As it were, a real "personal inauguration" seems at hand. It is a good time to focus on the emerging Medicine Wheel of the Earth and our energetic interconnection within Indri's Net. It is an excellent time to enhance the power of inner visualization and connection. Thanks to Adam for bringing this back into our consciousness. Try this visualization:.

Indri's Net: (as described in the ancient Sanskrit texts)

There is an endless net of threads throughout the universe.

The horizontal threads are in space.

The vertical threads are in time.

At every crossing of threads there is an individual.

And every individual is a crystal bead.

The great light of absolute being illuminates and penetrates every crystal being.

And every crystal being reflects not only the light from every other crystal in the net,

But also every reflection of every reflection throughout the universe.

MWM: Try that on for visualizing the All In All we call God. Talk about opening up channels….

Mayan Elders have delivered an urgent message: the major Earth Changes of the "Pachacuti" or "Purification" period have begun with the rupture of the Indo-Trench. They expect increasing seismic activity and major quakes of a similar nature to occur through the next several months.

FOR 2005:

Some major keywords for 2005 are:

"Gathering", most especially in the sense of gathering of forces;

"Being", as in the sense of fully participating in the realization and practice of what we dare to hope we are becoming;

"Accepting"; negatively as in eating the "Karmic Blowback" (the American People are going to take an immense amount of Karmic Blowback for the Tragedy in Iraq); positively as in receiving supportive affirmation for long-suffering spiritual efforts and intentions

"Emerging", realization and experiencing of the becomings long sought, most especially as in bringing forth the new understandings, orientations, needs, and directions of purpose for a profoundly different world than is celebrated in the Mass Media.

In the positive dimension, around these keywords, many new phenomenon will emerge, especially in the forms of groups and individuals manifesting new activities.

NEXT SEVEN YEARS:

In the negative dimension, the coming "Karmic Blowback" is going to be terrible and shake the very roots of everything in North America from now through to 2012. But a great turning towards peace and a desire for equitable, personal connection to real community is underway in the hearts and minds of a great mass of humanity. This is the entire hope.

STAY FOCUSED ON HELPING THE EMERGENCE OF PEACE, JUSTICE, AND FREEDOM. DENY ALL MOVEMENT TOWARDS FASCISM. THE FASCISTS AND BIGOTS AMONG THE NATIONS ARE GOING TO DELIVER INCREASING QUANTITIES OF KARMIC BLOWBACK TO EACH OTHER. It will be terrible in the coming years, and in 2005 the U.S. will begin to tangibly feel PRECURSERS of the blowback. Nothing is going to "go right" for the North American Powers That Be this year – and it gets worse and worse as the year goes down.

I SUGGEST YOU "DUCK" AND KEEP PUTTING YOURSELF IN A DIFFERENT PLACE ALLTOGETHER – MENTALLY AND EMOTIONALLY AND POLITICALLY AND ECONOMICALLY, AND IF YOU ARE URBAN DEPENDENT, I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU BEGIN TO FORM YOUR STRATEGY FOR PHYSICALLY DUCKING THE EMPIRE’S KARMIC BLOWBACK FOR THE PERIOD 2006-2012, ESPECIALLY IF YOU LIVE IN THE EAST COAST BUBBLE.

No-Eyes, the blind old first world prophet of the Rockies had it right 20 years ago, conditions are going to get increasing bad because of the karmic blowback and there is no end in sight until "the Phoenix screeches".

BREATH FREE. Let go of everything which is disturbed, distorted, or weird. Let go of everything which is forced, contrived, hidden, manipulative, and/or constrictive. Keep flowing with the rising tide of spiritual energies which are filling many thirsty souls. The old patterns are falling away. Transition continues. Embrace new relationships which are trying to form in your life if they are honest and straightforward and provide a new openness. Forget the fears of the unknown, embrace all that which lifts your life into the light of a greater understanding and relationship with the all.

SPIRITS EMERGING: CONFIRMING WHAT I PREDICTED LAST YEAR: "In a short while, some will come forth giving witness to a great energy which has come into their lives, literally, as if the hand of God was upon them. This is becoming more and more apparent and these words will have greater meaning by the end of the year."

Here is one. ADAM, an 18 year old healer in Vancouver, British Columbia, is beginning to be recognized and is causing more and more of a stir. He is quite possibly a great successor to the Edgar Cayce tradition. If you combine his group "work" with disciplined personal meditation, you have the keys to the full realization of gathering, being, and emergence this year. His two short books, which I had the opportunity to read over the year end holidays are well worth reading and he will tell you in his own words how to operationalize what I had written in this section last month:

Don’t react, go to center, get clear, release, and grieve…the Fourth Age is dying rapidly now… much more rapidly than we thought, its institutions and identities are beyond saving… let it go, let go, get to center…flow into God, let God flow into you…don’t speculate, don’t analyze, don’t react to the shtuff…clear…clean out the past four years…we are now free to grieve the death of everything we detested…let it go…let it go…let it die. As you re-center in God, find the realization that this is the final moment you have been waiting for to end your connections and involvements with the illusions and delusions of all that which has betrayed the divine within each and brought greed, war, and destruction over the Earth.

The destroyers belong to each other, this is now the final time of their fatal embrace. Let them love their wars…they have greatly desired the bitter wines of their hatreds and violence, they have lusted greatly for their Armageddon, and they shall have it.

The die has been cast with a thousand artifices and illusions. With the excellence of its manner of casting, God has delivered to you your own freedom from the delusions and spells of the Mass Sorcerers, indeed, from the entire age, if you will but realize it. Clear yourself and your life to find now the sense of movement and direction to separate your life from the dying culture which is putrefying all around you. There is no saving it…as Buckminster Fuller observed many decades ago, the old order is never saved, the new order merely grows up around it to eventually takes its place. So it will come to pass now in an intense period of vast change during the next twenty years.

The "Great Purification" predicted by the Hopi, Maya, Q’ero, and many others continues. How amazing that these ancient oral traditions could tune into last year and this one to advise us that this was a period of profound historical turning involving

The Great Purification

of the Earth? For additional discussion, see the commentary of May 19, 2004 and the commentary of June 16, 2004.

THE NEW BASIS IS GESTATING….

THE time to link the spiritual communities of the Earth. The Whole Earth. IT HAS BECOME URGENT TO LINK THE SPIRITUAL COMMUNITIES WITHIN A BROAD MOVEMENT WHICH PROVIDES NEW CURRENTS OF SPIRITUAL LEADERSHIP.

FOR THE MOST PART: Steady as she goes. A slow acceleration in the shifting of the poles has been underway for perhaps the past 100 years and the last three decades has shown an increase in the rate of acceleration. This has appeared to accelerate even more during the past decade.

POLAR MOTION

What is happening to the motion of the Earth. For the overall summary of the status of polar motion CLICK HERE. To see the current graphs of polar motion, CLICK HERE. Scroll down the page until you get to the black and white graphs with show the x and y coordinates of the North Spin Axis on two separate graphs.

BREAKING NEWS:

The deviation in the time dimension of the Earth's spiral wobble track continues.

AS PREVIOUSLY REPORTED:

Polar motion X Plot now showing perhaps as much as 20% deviation in the time dimension. A similar deviation is obvious also in the Y Plot. This may show up as a substantial increase in the rate of the drift of the North Spin Axis. Possibly, the average location may be seen to "drift" more rapidly during this "closing phase" of the 6.5 year spiral cycle, more rapidly than the preceding 6.5 year cycle.

This is most likely the engine in the acceleration of both

the earth changes, global warming, and the related weather/climate disruptions

FOR A DETAILED DISCUSSION OF THE RECENT "PHASE-SHIFTING" IN CHANDLER'S WOBBLE, GO TO THE NEW MATERIAL IN THE NEW Earth Changes Almanac

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

FOR 2005:

In general, the Wobble Track is showing continued tightening of the Chandler’s Wobble Spiral, as should be at this time in its 7 year Wobble Cycle, and the track seems to be conforming with a continued acceleration in the rate of drift, but this can be by no means certain until this 7 year cycle is over. In about two years we will be able to locate the minimum spiral of motion and then look for the average 7 year "location" of this past seven years for comparison with previous cycles.

NEXT SEVEN YEARS:

(The spiral track takes nearly seven years to define a complete wobble cycle and it takes the entire cycle to be able to calculate the average location of the North Spin Axis in order to compare it against other "average locations" in the previous axis cycles. From this, a straight line track of the "average locations" can be computed and the acceleration in the rate of motion of the "shift" can be defined I believe at the current time that this will show a specific "jump" this past year, a micro "pole shift". Very micro.)

REFERENCE:

http://maia.usno.navy.mil/xplot2.gif

http://maia.usno.navy.mil/yplot2.gif

MAGNETIC POLES – SHIFTING

What is happening to the magnetic fields of the Earth. No real change during the past year: a magnetic pole shift is not something to be very concerned about within this decade at least.

EXCELLENT BACKGROUNDER:

Focus On Our Magnetic Planet

Paris, France (ESA) Jan 25, 2005

http://www.terradaily.com/news/earth-magnetic-05b.html

"Mission controllers cross their fingers whenever the Sun is stormy and their spacecraft have to fly over the South Atlantic. There, even satellites in low orbits suffer many hits by atomic bullets from the Sun.

Troublesome faults occur in electronic systems and astronauts see flashes in their eyes. The Earth's magnetic field, which shields our planet against charged atomic particles coming from outer space, is curiously weak in that region.

The South Atlantic Anomaly, as the experts call it, is one pressing reason why they are intensifying their exploration of the Earth's magnetism. Denmark's Orsted satellite, launched in 1999, is dedicated to magnetic research, whilst Germany's CHAMP mission (2000) measures both magnetism and gravity.

These satellites show that the danger zone for satellites over Brazil and the South Atlantic is growing wider towards the southern Indian Ocean.

The Earth's magnetic field is becoming generally weaker at an astonishing rate. When a French-Danish team compared Orsted's results for 2000 with those from an American satellite, Magsat, 20 years earlier, the decline in the field's strength suggested that it might disappear completely in a thousand years or so.

The experts wonder if our planet is preparing to swap its north and south magnetic poles around, as it has often done before during the Earth's long history.

These and other mysteries about our magnetic planet will get the closer attention they deserve, in ESA's forthcoming Swarm project. Three satellites will work together to measure the magnetic field and its variations far more accurately than ever before. [...]

Separating the different sources of magnetism

Ordinary magnetic compasses obey the main magnetic field, produced by electric currents in the Earth's core of molten iron. But in magnetic storms, compass needles wander.

Since the 19th Century scientists have linked these storms to eruptions on the Sun. Many space ventures, recently including the ESA-NASA SOHO spacecraft and ESA's four-satellite Cluster mission, have helped to clarify the solar connection.

We live in a protective bubble in space called the magnetosphere. At its boundary, gusts in a non-stop solar wind of atomic particles battle with the Earth's magnetism.

As a result, events in outer space make a continual but highly variable contribution to the magnetic field. So do electric currents in the ionosphere, the zone of free electrons and charged air molecules high in the atmosphere that's best known for reflecting radio signals.

Other, much weaker patterns are overlaid on the global picture. In the Earth's crust, many rocks have built-in magnetism that remembers the direction of the main magnetic field when they formed.

This affects the field measured locally. By its subtle east-west comparisons Swarm will picture the magnetic field of the crust with unprecedented clarity. And even ocean water generates electric currents as it move in the main field, so that the ebb and flow of the tides have a slight magnetic effect.

As gauged by the satellites, the main field is roughly 6,000 times stronger than the rock magnetism of the ocean floor, and 30,000 times greater than the influence of the oceanic tides.

Only with delicate measurements by satellite constellations, supported by ground stations, ships and aircraft carrying magnetic instruments, can scientists sort out all the patterns of magnetism from the different sources.

The most careful analyses reveal yet another effect. Magnetic variations drive electric currents in the mantle, the main region between the core and the crust. These in turn cause further magnetic changes, from which scienti