The Northern Party at the South Magnetic Pole. Photographer Douglas Mawson 1909. Courtesy Mawson Collection South Australian Museum

We recently posted about the centennial of Robert Falcon Scott‘s departure on his ill-fated expedition to reach the South Pole.   Now the Australian National Maritime Museum will host a new exhibit, the Quest for the South Magnetic Pole.    The quest to locate the magnetic pole is more challenging than I had ever imagined.   Apparently it can shift by as much as 200 km per day.  Fitting perhaps, Quest for the South Magnetic Pole is a travelling exhibition developed by the South Australian Maritime Museum and the South Australian Museum with support from Visions of Australia.  The exhibit will be on display from July 2nd to the tenth of October.

Quest for the South Magnetic Pole

An exhibition coming to the Australian National Maritime Museum shows how scientists and explorers have been racing to reach Earth’s South Magnetic Pole… and still haven’t quite got there.

They’ve got exceedingly close recently, with Australians leading the way to a point within a couple of km of the goal.

Problem is, the pole keeps moving… sometimes leaping more than 200 km a day.

The exhibition Quest for the South Magnetic Pole traces one of the longest and most curious pursuits in exploration history.

Earth’s magnetic poles – the points where a free-moving compass needle stands exactly vertical to Earth’s surface (pointing down at the North Magnetic Pole, up at the South Magnetic Pole) – have lured explorers for centuries.

In 1600 the English physician William Gilbert deduced that Earth itself acts as one great magnet, governing the movement of man-made compasses.

Since then scientists have discovered that Earth’s magnetic field is caused by molten iron sluicing around in the planet’s core.

The molten iron flow patterns change constantly in response to Earth’s rotation and other influences, with the result that Earth’s magnetic field changes slowly and the magnetic poles drift gradually across the globe’s surface.

In the past 100 years, the South Magnetic Pole has drifted 1140 km in a north-westerly direction at an average rate of 11 km a year, taking it across the Antarctic continent and out to sea. If it continues in this direction, some say in about 300 years it could reach Adelaide.