Some of the worst kind of fear porn and profiteering from pseudo science based fear has been perpetrated by the likes of the clueless Patrick Geryl and Marshall Masters in relation to the Mayan calander end date. In fact much of the fear based businesses revolve around the 2012 end date. These guys know where the wonga is.
Much of their nonsense is centered around the pseudo science of planets and CME's effecting geophysical activity which it is proven they most definitely do not.
I find these two clowns (Geryl and Masters), though there are others, particularly obnoxious and ignorant.
Geryl doesnt even understand that the inner core of the planet is not magnetic, it is the outer core. Thick as a brick. CME's
do not wipe out civilisations
Fear is big business and these guys now it. They have no credibility whatsoever and are most definitely servants of the fire of the egregore of Doom.
There are other pesudos and fear prophets but all of them swim in the putrid swamp of fear and epic failness. Masters and Geryl are perfect examples however.
Alignments do not cause earthquakes
http://www.2012hoax.org/planetary-alignmentThe ‘earthquakes’ claim appears to be that the gravitational influence of the non-existent alignments will cause earthquakes on Earth. However, the moon is much closer to us than any other astronomical object, so even though it is much smaller and lighter, it completely swamps out any gravitational or tidal effects caused by the Sun, Jupiter, Saturn, or any other object. The Sun does cause tides on the Earth, and when these tides are combined with the moon tides (at the full and new moons) then they are called ’spring tides’. When they are counter to the moon’s tides (at the first and last quarter moons) then they are called ‘neap tides’. The primary influence on the Earth’s tides is the Moon. Other planets are too small and too far away to cause any noticeable effect.
Patrick Geryl Refuted with mathametical and scientific evidence
http://www.2012hoax.org/patrick-gerylGeryl claims that:
In the year 2012 the Earth awaits a super catastrophe: its magnetic field will completely reverse in one go. Phenomenal earthquakes and tidal waves will destroy our civilization. Europe and North-America will shift thousands of kilometers northward and end up in a polar clime. Nearly the whole Earth's population will perish in the apocalyptic events.2
The cause of this massive destruction?
"A very HIGH sunspot is expected in 2012…when that happens… a huge… an enormous… a gargantic…a gargantuan solar flare will be thrown to the Earth and will destroy our civilization."3
Dresden Codex
Geryl and his co-author Ratinck claim that they were able to read and decipher parts of the Dresden Codex4 and that they discovered that the old Egyptians and the ancient Maya were both descendants of Atlantis. If this sounds familiar, it should. It was originally proposed in the 1882 pseudo-archeology book Atlantis: The Antedeluvian World by Ignatius Donnelly5.
Solar Eruption to Polar Shift
On this basis, Geryl and Ratinck came to the conclusion that in 2012, between December 19th and 21st, there will be a massive solar eruption that will reach the Earth within a few hours, that the Earth will be surrounded by a cloud of plasma, that the cloud of plasma will have a magnetic field in a different orientation than that of the Earth, and that in response the core of the earth will be deflected by the magnetic field, turning under the crust until it arrives at a different orientation. However, since the rotation of the core and the crust would then be in different directions, massive earthquakes and other phenomena would occur.
The theory refers to its own research and calculations, and predictions which were claimed to have been made by the Maya and ancient Egyptians. These predictions are not confirmed by Mayanists or Egyptologists.
"Can't possibly be wrong"
When asked what would happen if December 2012 were to come and go without the earthquakes and tsunamis of his predictions, Geryl fell silent.
"I don't really contemplate that possibility," he said. "[My predictions] are so spectacular, they can't possibly be wrong."6
Problems with Geryl's ideas
To people trained in astronomy, Patrick Geryl's idea is laughable. Geryl never seems to explain how he is able to predict this "solar flare"7 years ahead of time when astrophysicists are not able to do so, or how he knows that the magnetic field of his imaginary plasma cloud is going to be opposite that of the Earth. When questioned on these topics, he refers people to his books.
Not massive enough
In order to exert a force on the earth that would cause part of the earth to flip over, you would have to exert as much energy as it would take to stop it, and start it spinning again in the opposite direction. When we are talking about the core earth we are talking about a huge spinning mass. The core of the earth is divided into two parts, the solid iron core which is about the size of the moon, and the liquid outer core which is the size of mars. The inner core rotates with the earth, only slightly out of sync with the rest of the planet8.
Geryl claims that a massive CME is going to flip the core over, physically. Let us assume that he means the solid inner core, which is the size of the moon[7]. In order to turn the core as Geryl claims, the CME would have to be more massive than the core.
This is true for the same reasons that astronauts working on the Hubble had to have their feet bolted to the mechanical arm of the space shuttle. Because if you try to turn a screw in space, you wind up with your body rotating around the screw instead of the screw turning out of the socket. On earth or inside the shuttle you are braced against something. Out in space with nothing to brace against and no gravity to hold you to the ground, you just spin. The CME that Geryl has flipping the core is in the same situation. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Assuming there was no spin at all on the core, and assuming there was a realistic way to couple the two masses, in order to turn the core 180 degrees, the mass of the CME would have to be equal to that of the core, and turn 180 degrees in the opposite direction.
If the CME were less massive than the core, it would have to complete a turn of more than 180 degrees. Something with 1/2 the mass of the core would have to complete a full rotation, etc.
So, how much mass are we talking about?
The volume of the moon is 21.9 billion cubic kilometers. That is 21,900,000,000 km3 or 2.19×1010km3. There are 1015 cubic centimeters in 1 cubic kilometer, or 2.19×1025cm3 in the solid inner core. Iron has a density of 7.874 g/cc, so the mass of the core is 2.19×1025×7.874 or 1.724×1026 grams. In contrast, the average mass of a CME is 1.6×1015 grams, or about 1011 ( That is 100,000,000,000 ) times smaller.
There is no way a CME could be massive enough to turn the core.
Not magnetic enough
In addition to the problem with the mass, there is a problem with coupling the two masses together. Geryl claims that the magnetic field of the CME will push the core over by acting on the magnetic field of the core. This claim also fails.
Let us assume that the solid core is magnetized (it is not, but we'll leave that aside for the moment). Geryl's claim requires a magnetic field strong enough to grab that spinning mass and flip it over. In order to do that the magnetic field strength would have to be much more intense than the magnetic field of the earth.
The strength of a magnetic field obeys the inverse square law. If you double the distance, the field strength falls to one quarter. In order to overwhelm the magnetic field of the earth, the field generated by the CME would have to be stronger than that of the earth. That is actually not that hard to do on a very localized basis. The strength of the field at the Earth's surface ranges from less than 30 microTeslas (0.3 Gauss) in an area including most of South America and South Africa to over 60 microTeslas (0.6 Gauss) around the magnetic poles in northern Canada and south of Australia, and in part of Siberia. Any bar magnet will seize a compass needle, overwhelming the magnetic field of the earth within several inches of the magnet. However, a CME is a large, diffuse object, and its magnetic field would have to be much larger than that of the earth in order to affect the core.
Even if you took a second earth and (ignoring gravity) brought it next to our earth and tried to flip it magnetically, you wouldn't be able to do it. If you took a second earth with a magnetic field hundreds of times stronger than ours, you still wouldn't be able to do it. You would need a much more massive object with a much stronger magnetic field to overcome the weakness of the magnetic interaction, and the stability of the earth given to it by its spin.
So in order to flip the core, the CME would have to be intensely magnetic and many times more massive than the earth, let alone the earth's core. A CME does not come anywhere near being massive enough or magnetic enough to cause this effect.
Nowhere to hide
Let us assume that we are wrong in our analysis above. Geryl is proposing that his group be given 1 billion US$ in order to build a survival center in the Sierra Nevada mountains of Spain. The problem is, if he were right, there would be nowhere to hide.
ConclusionPatrick Geryl's ideas are not scientific theories. He indulges in pseudo-science (specifically pseudo-astronomy and pseudo-archeology) and his conclusions are incorrect. We show that his claimed mechanism for physically flipping the earth's core is impossible, and that his claimed results (earthquakes, tsunamis, etc) are incorrect.