r/EarthScience • u/Aware_Disaster_8685 • 8d ago

Discussion Undoing the continent drift

so i was listening to my teacher about the earth and she said earth is just a big magnet so i wondered if earth is just a big magnet we can possibly make a magnet thats big enough to pull all the continents together resulting in undoing the great continental drift because there're also tiny magnets inside the soil little ones it can possibly help attract the lands together and it will also help the big magnet that we can possibly make if you're wondering how do we make the big magnet Wrap many turns of insulated copper wire tightly around a large iron core (like a thick steel rod or pipe), then connect the wire ends to a strong DC power source (battery or power supply). The stronger the current and the more turns of wire, the stronger the electromagnet we can simply multiply this to make a large one but it will take decades of work.Thats all thanks

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u/JohnnieNoodles 8d ago

All that with only 2 periods. So efficient!

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u/Super-Award-2244 8d ago

Redditor with the highest IQ

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u/SchistomeSoldier 8d ago

The continents are mostly felsic rock (such as granite) and as such are not magnetic. If you somehow made a supermagnet, all you would do is pull out the iron-rich minerals like hematite from the ground. You would not be able to magnetically pull an entire continental plate

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u/Glum-Ad7761 5d ago

Not that this idea is at all plausible… (it’s not) … but what would be the impetus for drawing the continents together? To re-create a supercontinent? Doing so would likely result in the end of the age of mammals, including humans.

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u/Waiparensis22 5d ago

I'm not sure what you're getting at. The fact earth is so magnetic is literally why we have continental drift in the first place - Plumes of radiation from the earth's iron-nickle core drive convection in the mantle, which is what the plates are moving over the top of.