Where will a compass point at the South Pole?
The Magnetic South Pole (the point on the earth that magnetic compasses point at) is NOT at the same location as the Geographic South Pole. Thus a magnetic compass at the South Pole will point north! But north to where? The position of the South Magnetic Pole in February 1998 was 64.59 S and 138.53 E. This is about the same longitude as Adelaide in South Australia. So a compass at the South Pole points towards the middle of Australia. The closer you get to the Magnetic Pole the more vertical the earths field gets. At South Pole the field will be fairly vertical. At Casey Station (Geographic location 66deg17minS 110deg32minE), just north of the Antarctic circle, in 1996 (when I maintained the geophysical observatory and took this measurement) the absolute direction of the earths magnetic field was Declination -92deg35.4min Inclination -81deg25.3min, which is almost directly east off the station, and 8.5 degress of vertical (for the record the field strength was 64526nT). At Casey a magn
