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Major Anomaly In Chandler's Wobble - 2005/2006

last revised February 8, 2006

The Earth's Wobble Has Paused
What this portends, no one knows.

(ECB February 8, 2006, MWM) For at least three and a half weeks there has been almost no movement of the spin axis in the normal spiral track of Chandler�s Wobble. See an extensive analysis of the pause in the wobble as of February 8, 2006 at the website. It is also being sent to subscribers via email directly after this Bulletin.

For the past 21 days there has been no discernable wobble motion in the Earth. Have we come to a profound change in the geophysics of the Earth? Why this sudden change in what usually has been for the past 100 years or more a fairly regular, fairly predictable wobble track.

As is well known, the wobble is generated by the differential pulling of the Moon and the Sun on the Earth's equatorial bulge (and any other concentrations of mass in or on the Earth). This differential pulling is caused by the oblique angles of the orbital planes which bring the Sun and the Moon alternatively above and below the equator, thus tending through orbital time to push one side of the Earth or the other to move faster or slower than the other side to the North or to the South.

The Earth's Wobble has a 7 year cycle which produces two extremes, a small spiraling wobble circle and a large spiraling wobble circle, about 3.5 years apart. The Earth was in October 2005 moving into the small spiraling circle (the MIN phase of the wobble), which should have slowly unfolded during 2006 and the first few months of 2007. (Each spiraling circle takes about 14 months).

But suddenly at the beginning of November 2005, the track of the location of the spin axis veered at a very sharp right angle to its circling motion. The track of the spin axis began to slow down and by about January 8, 2006, it ceased nearly all relative motion on the x and y coordinates which are used to define the daily changing location of the spin axis.

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