Slashdot Mirror
Quake Changes Earth's Rotation, Moves Islands
kernel panic attack writes "This week's deadly Asian Quake and Tsunami may have been so powerful,
that it changed the rate of Earth's rotation. In a Reuters article,
a NASA geophysicist theorizes that the quake compacted the Earth enough
to speed up the planet's rotation by 3 microseconds. A second
article
says the quake moved undersea tectonic plates by up to 98 feet, shifting
islands near Sumatra out to sea an unknown distance. Also, a
USGS team wants images from commercial satellite operators to
help pinpoint coastline damage. Lastly, an interesting article from the Australian Spaceguard Survey about the need for a Tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean. The author comments that tsunami warnings may not help much, as people often flock to the coastline to see the giant waves." The current estimated death toll is now nearly 70,000; Amazon and Google, among others, have added front-page links to simplify donating to the disaster relief effort.
Probably not as much traffic as Amazon or Google, but Apple also has also modified their front page to offer multiple relief links. Even the four boxes at the bottom have been changed to different organizations.
Earthquakes can't change the Earth's orbit anymore than you can fly by pulling your hair upwards.
There is a nuclear power station in Kalpakkam, India on the coastline that got hit by the Tsunami. The reactor was shutdown automatically. There was some flooding in the unit. The authorites claim it is safe. I wonder if these nuclear power station has any safegaurds for earthquacks.
0.000003 seconds * 365 days = 0.001095 seconds per year
0.001095 sec/yr * 1000 years = 1.095 seconds
You're all bastards!
A 10.0 earthquake has energy equivilant 1,000,000,000,000 tons of TNT. It would create a fault that circles the earth. A 12.0 on the other hand, with 160,000,000,000,000 tons of tnt energy, would break the hearth in half. Comparatively, the Northridge, CA quake of 1994 was "only" equal to 5,000,000 tons of emergy.
While it is important to have a warning system, if you look at the historical impact of tsunamis you will see that they don't happen that often. Aid money could be used for better things at this point in time.
w ave/surge)
For those interested in historical data, check out the em-dat database
http://www.em-dat.net/disasters/profiles.php
(
You're right. Earthquakes didn't change the earth's orbit, they changed the earth's rate of rotation, which is a completely different animal.
-Jesse
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
I myself donated $500 to AmeriCares which seems to be a fairly reputable charity, and I'm only a poor graduate student.
Those of you who are well off enough, please, donate as much as you can to your favorite charity.
I quote John Donne:
"No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend's or of thine own were. Any man's death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee."
No more than usual perturbations, I suppose: geostationary satellites already tend to drift a little and need stationkeeping.
None. The second is defined relative to quantum levels in the caesium atom, that won't change. As for keeping up with the calendar, the Earth's rotation already has small variations; since 3 microseconds is roughly 1/300 second, we might have to subtract a leap second next July or December. (E.g. straight from 2005-12-31/23:59:58 to 2006-01-01/0:00:00 UTC.)
Don't know, but don't think the resolution is that precise.
I, the rotational inertia, is calculated different ways for different geometries. A long stick held by the end has a larger I than the same stick held by the center, for instance. Another example is a sphere, like the Earth, rotating on an axis. If it suddenly puts out a long arm, that's going to increase its rotation inertia considerably, decreasing its angular velocity. Lifting up a whole region by a few inches could easily do that.
You know what one rotation of the earth is called, right? One of those is 3 microseconds faster.
this article at BBC News
states that a cyclone in 1970 killed up to 500,000 people in Bangladesh.
Also China suffered similar losses when an earthquake with a magnitude of 8.3 almost obliterated the north-eastern city of Tangshan in 1976. The official number of people killed was put at around 250,000, although some said the figure was more like 750,000.
And not much over 100 years ago In 1887, about 900,000 people died when [China's] Yellow River burst its banks in the worst-ever recorded flooding
Or, in terms of real catastrophe that *might* be human-created/contributed
The droughts that swept across sub-Saharan African in the 1980s led to the starvation of an estimated one million people. They are threatening to do the same again
Pulling hair is not the same...
A better example would be sitting in one of those tilt-a-whirl's at the carnivals. Imagine it spinning around at a constant rate... now what do you do to make it spin faster or slower? Shift your weight.
Same principle applies here... the weight of the earth's crust shifted in a new direction. We are talking about billions of tons of rock movement from this quake, so it is entirely realistic that the rotation changed ever so slightly.
The Earth is modeled in Physics classes as if the density is consistent throughout, so that they use a simplistic geocentric model as if all of the mass were at the center. This is not how The Earth is actually configured. For doing satelites one must models The Earth with micro-gravity elements, where masses are charted and denser areas have different effects based upon their sizes and locations. It is well known, for example, that under the South Atlantic Ocean there is a larger force of gravity.
And so if there were a shift in some dense part of the mantle or the core where it went farther into The Earth (or farther away) it would change the rotational speed because of the conservation of angular momentum. Think of a child spinning on a swing. When the child pulls in his arms, the child spins faster. When the child puts her arms out, she spins slower. Same with The Earth.
Anyone looking for the tsunami videos can also now find them on edonkey/emule:a ryinsanity.org.wmv
a nity.org.wmv
n sanity.org.wmv
i nsanity.org.avi
tsunami_asia_261204_patong_beach___from_contempor
tsunami_asia_261204_phuket___from_contemporaryins
tsunami_asia_261204_srilanka___from_contemporaryi
tsunami_asia_261204_zeebeving___from_contemporary
We already have leap seconds: http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/leapsec.html
-9mm-
The length of a day fluctuates two milliseconds, or a thousand times more, over the course of a year. Most of this attributed to the annual pattern of ocean storms.
Fsck, here went my moderation.
I have been on that island (it is worth visiting while it lasts). Nearly killed myself aquaplaning in a tropical rainstorm on a road with 400+ meter cliff going into the sea on the right and 400+ cliff going up towards the volcano in question on the left.
Anyway, on subject:
It has a US Geological Survey run GPS station network every several hundred meters or so in some places do detect any movement and try to predict the next eruption. There will be a fair warning on this one. It is a question if anyone will dare to use that warning wisely which I doubt.
That is the good bit.
The bad bit is that compared to a worst case La Palma scenario the tsunami from 2004 Christmas earthquake will be a child's game in a puddle. The predicted worst case tsunami for La Palma is 800m at the start, 100+m at Marroco and Capo Verde, 30+m at Lisbon, Rio and the Caribean, 10+ m along the entire East Coast of the US including New York and Ireland and 5+ at the South coast of the UK. The death toll if there will be no evacuation will be in the tens of millions if not hundreds. That is the worst case scenario which is if it slides the same way it slid 1+ million years ago when the current north caldera has formed (it is the largest volcanic caldera formed by a landslide on the planet - 30km+ diameter). Even if it is a fraction of that it is still really scary.
Just to make things worse is that current models are that a landslide is likely to follow one of the next 3-5 eruptions and it erupts every 20 years on average.
And worst part is that it has not erupted for nearly 33 years now so the next eruption is likely to be bigger then usual.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
The guys over at India's department of Space, National Remote Sensing Agency posted a link to an 8MB powerpoint slide of satellite images of the affected areas which effectively crippled their server due to the demand. Some of us readers over at Tsunamihelp.blogspot.com mananged to get some mirrors up here and here. I also created a .torrent which includes the images(in a PowerPoint presentation) as well as a bunch of footage of the tsunami that has been going around bringing down servers. Grab the .Torrent. Please grab the .torrent unless you're really lazy, the other mirrors will probably be tried first by those who really need the data. More seeders needed for that .torrent, leave your BT clients running please.
What if Digg added local news and a Slashdot inspired comment karma system? ---
http://houndwire.com
http://www.mikemars.com/video/tsunamiphuket.wmv
h ttp://www.mikemars.com/video/sri_lanka_tsunami.wm v
http://www.mikemars.com/video/patong_beach.wmv
Another estimate for the time change here.
1 22 80221dec28,1,6119845.column
/day
/day difference.
/year) / 12 months = 4.63 (ft/month)
.1829 ft * 12 inches = 2.195 in/year
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-04
(some useless registration required). I quote from the article.
"Incredibly, the magnitude 9.0 earthquake that struck off Sumatra on Sunday morning caused a vertical displacement of so much material that the rotation period of the Earth has been permanently altered. By a tiny but measurable amount, the Earth is now rotating more quickly on its axis, and the 24-hour day is now one ten-thousandth second shorter.That's the result of calculations based on preliminary data made by Oak Park astronomer Dr. Leslie M. Golden. It's analogous to the increase in rotational speed that a twirling ice skater experiences when he or she draws in their arms. It is estimated that during the Sumatran quake, a block of material roughly 600 miles in length and 100 miles in width fell 30 feet closer to the Earth's axis of rotation. The planet has responded by rotating more rapidly, albeit ever so slightly, and our 24-hour days are now one ten-thousandth second shorter." by Tom Skilling.
If it is one ten-thousandth of a second then it works out to have more effect.
Doing the math for 1/10,000 of a sec/day:
so 10,000 days = 1 second
10000/365 = 27.39 years
So in 27.39 years we loose a second.
Diameter of earth 12,756 km or circumference 24,902 mi or 131,482,560 ft (appox at equator)
One second of the day means a radial distance of
24hr * 60 min *60 sec = 86400 seconds
131,482,560 (feet / day) / 86400 (sec/day) = 1521.79 feet/sec
at the equator (old 24 hour day)
or is what the eath turns in one second
or if there is change of 1521.79 feet of alignment in 27.39 years. or 55.56 feet / year.
or:
55.56 (feet/yr) * 12 in/foot = 666.72in/yr(bad omen here)
or 666.72 (in/year) / 365 days (aprox) = 1.8 in
55.56 (feet
This is a different estimate than Nasas but might be thought of as an upper bound until things
can be calculated more precisely.
Satelite's orbits will not change their period because of the change in the earths rotational speed. Geosynchronous satalites will slip out of synchronisity and need to use fuel to change their orbits, reducing their effective life as we have no way of replenishing fuel in geosynchronous orbit (around 22k miles out I think).
This will be devistating for GPS and will require immediate upgrades/repossitioning to those systems.
Can you imagine a year from now a precision guided missle landing 55 feet to the left. and each day
an additional 55 feet more. Frightning. I image the military has stopped using GPS guided weapons
until that can be corrected.
Now if you correct those numbers for the Nasa estimate.
3/100,000 instead of 1/10,000 then the
or 3,000,000 days to get one second then.
or 8219 years
1521.79 (ft/sec) / 8319 (years/sec) =.1829 (ft/year)
much less of an adjustment or a threat to satelite's positions or positioning satelites.
(check the math, who knows if I did it right)
Just an intellectual exercise to assess the effect. Enjoy
Bayu Pranata was sipping tea shortly after starting his 7am shift at the Meteorology and Geophysics Agency in West Sumatra, Indonesia, about 500 miles south of the quake's epicenter, when he was disturbed by a "tak, tak, tak" sound. It was so loud he thought mechanics had started working in the garage next door. Then he realized it was the pen on the seismograph. He hurriedly called the National Earthquake Center in Jakarta, but ended up spending more than an hour trying to contact Indonesian disaster officials in vain.
The quake was detected in Japan, and Australia. Austrailian seismology officials (knowing that it would likely create a Tsunami) notified some overseas embassies , but they did not pass on the info because it might overstep diplomatic protocal.
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
The separate waves likely resulted from the aftershocks produced from the initial earthquake. I believe they are called P and S waves, for Primary and Secondary.
Live forever, or die trying.
I'm looking into that. According to Amazon, they dock 2.9% + 30 cents, which is roughly equivalent to credit-card fees that agencies would face anyway. I'm surfing for further info, and if you're right, I'll change my sig...
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
So it looks like Amazon.com is not only giving this front-page billing, they are also personally paying the credit card transaction fee, in effect losing at least a couple pennies for each dollar contributed.
In other words, they can't be faulted one iota.
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
The earth orbits the sun. Imagine there is an axis through the centre of the sun around which the earth is orbiting the sun.
The earth also rotates. The axis of rotation of the earth does not point in the same direction as the axis of the orbit. This is why we say that the earth is tilted.
The tilt keeps pointing in the same direction throughout the year, ignoring the fact that it wobbles.
This means that in summer, the axis in your hemisphere will be pointing towards the sun. The sun will be high in the sky and the energy from the sun will fall directly onto the land so there is more energy per unit area and is hotter.
In winter, the axis in your hemisphere will be pointing away from the sun. The sun will be low in the sky and the rays will strike the earth at an angle and so have less energy per unit area and is so colder.
The seasons vary between these extremes.
It also explains why Australia has summer when the UK has winter as they are on opposite sides of the globe.
As an example of how the angle of the rays striking the earth varies the energy, shine a torch at a piece of paper from straight on. The torch gives out a particular amount of light and energy. Now tilt the paper - the circle of light will elongate into an oval of greater area than the original circle. The torch is still giving out the same amount of energy, it is just spread over a greater area. This means that each particle of the paper must be getting less energy.
I hope that all makes sense!
Now, on top of the tilt, there is a wobble. This is just a change to the tilt. If the tilt increases due to the wobble, the seasons will become more extreme (that is, the difference between summer and winter will increase). If the tilt decreases then the difference between winter and summer will also decrease. If there was no tilt, we would have no seasons.
Cheers,
Roger
Do you have any better hostages?
Actually, the 3 microsecond effect (the Earth is now spinning a bit faster, shortening our day by about 3 microseconds) will have no long term effect. Our Moon has the drag effect on Earth anyway, continuously prolonging our days - about 15 microseconds per year.
r thquake
Aha, here is a bit about that from Wikipedia[1]:
"The moment of inertia of Earth decreased a bit due to the earthquake. Because the angular momentum is conserved, this results in an increase of the angular velocity of Earth's rotation. In other words, the earthquake shortened the length of a day by as much as 3 s. However, due to tidal effects of the Moon, the Earth's rotation slows by 15 s per year. So any rotation speedup due to the earthquake will have no long-lasting effect at all."
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_ea
Simpy
http://news.google.com/news?q=stingy&hl=en&lr=&sa= N&tab=wn
Nobody's making fun of the situation, it's a jab at a dope from the UN who called the US stingy, along with the rest of "the West." Hardly an appropriate label for one of, if not the most generous nation(s) on the planet (yes, even per capita).
I suspect people will use this as a springboard to say, "yes, but the US is so terrible because of x, y, and z" since this is Slashdot, after all - but that has nothing to do with charity.
Sorry refered to 55 ft/day that is per/year but 4.63 ft month or about 1.8in/ day. So you have a month or two to move from next to ground zero to not be mistaken for a terroist bomb factory by a GPS weapon (if the GPS system is not updated).
http://www.big-boys.com/articles/tsunami.html
They did contact the State Department. The State Department also could not find contact information for disaster warnings.
My guess is that now they know who to contact, perhaps even for all countries in the world.
Fellowship 9/11
actually it's 15 million pounds not 15 million dollars. That's about 28.7 million dollars.
I don't think this really affects the good point you are making though.
Actually the increase in rotation was not caused by any "push", but because one fault slipping under another pulled more mass towards the center of the Earth. Being a body in rotation, the more compact it is, the faster it will spin.
Actually its 15 million pounds which is over 28 million US dollars.
Reuters says France gave 15m euros (20m$). You should switch to a channel that broadcasts news, not hate.
It would be nice to be sure of anything the way some people are of everything.
Awww... poor little eurotrash. You seem to think that the only organization fit to distribute funds are governmental orgs and that the only funds that count are ones that are gathered through coercion (taxes).
Noticeably absent from the anti-american salon article are numbers for private charitable giving (which dwarf any country no matter how you slice - Hell, between 1992 and 1998 the US sent almost $2.9 billion in PRIVATE AID to CUBA!) and US military expenditures (no, we're not discussing Iraq) that are solely for humanitarian purposes.
We're moving a f'en carrier group into the region for support and search and rescue, you think that's cheap?
With 300 million people you donated ODA $6.9 billion in foreign aid in 1997.
http://www.usaid.gov/fani/ch06/privateaid.htm
The actual total of official development assistance and private giving was $44.5 billion, or 0.45 percent of U.S. gross national income - and that still doesn't account for military humanitarian spending
LOL: In 2000 U.S. universities and colleges gave more to developing countries in foreign scholarships than Australia, Belgium, Norway, Spain, and Switzerland each gave in ODA.
What were you saying again?
And, btw, the current numbers for ODA funding are:
Australia - $1.2 Billion
France - $7.3 Billion
US - $16.2 Billion (a 23% increase over last year under the evil Bushilter!)
The speed of rotation increased due to mass moving toward the center of rotation (remember the figure skater example). The subduction of the eastern (Pacific?) plate under the western (Indian?) plate moved more mass closer to the center than was moved away. The basic math on it is mass x radius change of the diving plate - the mass x radius change of the rising plate. Movements in have a greater effect on rotational speed (due to the percentage change in radius) than movements out by a common objective distance.
"Secrecy is the Beginning of Tyranny" "No intelligent man has any respect for an unjust law" -Robert Heinlein
Normally when a person or entity uses the amazon honor system for donations/payments amazon takes a nice cut of the pie. I emailed them today to check if they did the same thing for the disaster relief and apparently they aren't!
I included both emails below:
TO: Amazon
FROM: Urgo
I have a question about the disaster relief donation page that you have setup on amazon.com. I know normally with the amazon honor system amazon gets a cut of all the donations. Is amazon taking a cut of the money in this case or is all of the money people donate going right to the red cross?
FROM: Amazon
TO: Urgo
Thanks for writing to us at Amazon.com.
Please rest assured that all the donated money will go to the Red Cross to help victims of tragedies in southern Asia, India, and Africa.
Please know that Amazon.com is waiving its usual fees.
Belive in Technology and AMAZE yourself. -- RIP ZDTV/TechTV
Seasons have nothing to do with the earth's elliptical orbit and everything to do with the tilt of the axis. The perihelion (the nearest the earth gets to the sun) of the earth's orbit occurs in January, in the middle of the northern hemisphere winter.
From the perspective of the northern hemisphere, winter occurs when the earth is nearest the sun and summer when it is furthest. This is obviously reversed in the southern hemisphere.
Isn't the mass of earth still the same?
When a figure skater doing a spin pulls her arms in toward herself to speed up, her mass is the same also, but it still works. This is the same principle.
Linear momentum depends just on the mass. Angular momentum depends both on the mass and on the radius of that mass.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
My merchant account cost me 1.19% and +.14. Is their fraud level that high?