At a meeting of the American Geophysical Union, Joseph Stoner of Oregon State University suggested that the magnetic north pole could drift out of Canada and into Siberia within the next century. “This may be part of a normal oscillation and it will eventually migrate back toward Canada,” suggests Stoner but the magnetic poles do move around and, on rare occasions, swap places (apparently 25 times in the last 5 million years). Gone are the days of relying on compasses for direction so the impact on navigation may not be so big. Nevertheless, it might be necessary to correct the declination on all those topographic maps more often than one might suppose.

By way of jeepx