How will a compass needle align itself when taken to the geographic north pole?
If you put your compass on the geographic north pole (earth’s rotational axis) then it will point south to the earth’s magnetic pole located near Ellesmere Island in northern Canada. Every direction from the geographic north pole is south. The exact location of the magnetic pole wanders, and the rate of wandering is accelerating, leading some geophysicists to speculate that we are getting close to a magnetic pole reversal. A compass on the magnetic north pole (near Ellesmere Island, I’ve been there) won’t spin, it will just rest wherever the needle happens to be as there is no magnetic force to orient the needle with the earth’s magnetic field.
