Could be. Could also be old news. What we ought to wonder about is that Mars has no magnetic field of any consequence yet Mars rock has preferred magnetism directions as if Mars had a magnetic field once as it had an atmosphere once. If planetary magnetism is due to the core as is claimed for earth, where did Mars’ magnetic field go? We can discuss Jupiter and the sun.
Good enough place to bump this cool thread.
By the way, perhaps the SubQuantum Kinetic theory addresses this?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1884938/posts
Prediction No. 9 (1983): In chapter 3 of his dissertation, LaViolette proposed that geomagnetic reversals are induced by solar cosmic ray storms. He proposed that at times when invading cosmic dust causes the Sun to become very active and engage in continual flaring activity, major solar outbursts could occur that are a thousand times more intense than those currently observed. Further he proposed that solar cosmic rays from such a mega flare could impact the Earth’s magnetosphere, become trapped there to form storm-time radiation belts, and generate an equatorial ring current producing a magnetic field opposed to the Earth’s. If sufficiently intense, this ring current magnetic field could cancel out the Earth’s own field and flip the residual magnetic field pole to an equatorial location. From this position it could later either recover or adopt a reversed polarity. He proposed that this geomagnetic excursion would be very rapid, occurring in a matter of days.
Verification (1989 - 95): Geophysicists reported their analysis of a geomagnetic reversal recorded in the Steens Mountain lava formation, conclusively demonstrating that during this reversal the Earth’s magnetic pole changed direction as fast as 8 degrees per day. This overthrew the conventional geocentric view which could not account for such rapid changes with internal motions of the Earth’s core dynamo. It confirmed Dr. LaViolette’s mechanism of rapid change.
Concordance (1995): Unaware of LaViolette’s publications, two French geophysicists published a paper that sought to explain the Steens Mountain polarity reversal as being due to a solar cosmic ray cause. Their mechanism was the same as that which LaViolette had proposed 6 years before the Steens Mountain discovery. Their independent arrival at the same idea is evidence of parallel idea development and consensus with LaViolette’s earlier theory.
Mars has a larger surface to volume ratio due to its smaller radius which allowed it to cool down faster after accretion. It is estimated that the magnetic field of Mars lasted about half a billion years. Then the solar wind was able to strip the atmosphere and oceans (it was deflected before).
A good question is what caused the planetary magnetic field on Venus to fail. Venus is comparable to the Earth in surface to volume ratio so it is surprising that it doesn't have a similar magnetic field. The lack of a magnetic field (which in our case is produced by a dynamo in the Earth's core) implies that the core of Venus is all liquid with no convection or even perhaps that the core is all solid.
I note the Venus problem because while the standard explanations for the magnetic fields of Earth and Mars discuss surface to volume ratios, there are more variables that must be discussed. The Earth has a strong convection cycle in which it transports heat to the surface (which is observed by plate tectonics). Some would argue that Mars has some evidence of early plate motion which indicates some convection occurred. No plate motion is visible on Venus which may indicate that no convection is occurring or has occurred. Perhaps the high surface temperature makes the temperature gradient too shallow to support a strong convection cycle.