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.

Comments

Apple Too

[ack154]

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.

Re:Apple Too

[TopShelf]

Don't know why they couldn't put the link in the article summary, but the Amazon donation link is in the sig below:

Re:Apple Too

[stupidfoo]

F'en stingy Americans! How dare you raise millions and millions of dollars privately!?! Clearly your taxes are too low!

Rotation

[Manan Shah]

I would not think a quake, even of this magnitude could have that much effect on rotation. Then again, the speculation is that there could never be enough energy for a 10.0 quake, so 9.0 is pretty high up on the list. It is impossible to comprehend, but an 8.6 earthquake has enough energy to equal 60,000 hydrogen bombs. Amazing.

Re:Rotation

[justkarl]

I'm not surprised that it sped up the rotation by 3 microseconds(not much), but I'm wondering if this really has any secondary effect on the planet. Like "The Day After Tomorrow"-like effects. And I don't mean special effects laced with bad screenwriting.

Re:Rotation

[BridgeBum]

We already do. The first one was in 1972.

Re:Rotation

[nwbvt]

Thing is that stuff like this is really not out of the ordinary. This was the largest quake in 40 years, that means a larger one happened 40 years ago. And there were 3 larger ones in the past 100 years. Now for a human being once in every 40 years is rare, but for the planet that is pretty routine. We are all brought up to believe that the Earth is this fragile thing in which the slightest alteration screws up the balance of nature, but that really is not the case. It is a constantly changing giant rock spinning around in space.

Now that doesn't mean that the quake can't have changes just because larger recent quakes didn't do anything. In fact we know that massive changes in the Earth have happened before in the more distant past, and I seriously doubt they were from SUVs polluting too much, so it is perfectly possible that there is something special about this quake (other than just its magnitude) that will cause major changes.

As was mentioned yesterday

[AbbyNormal]

the wiki is here and some amazing videos are here

Absolutely amazing, the death-toll is reaching 69,000. I don't mean to be pessimistic, but would a warning system really have helped, though? I mean there are accounts of entire villages just being swept out to sea. Any life, obviously, is worth saving, but in the future I wonder how you could warn villages without power/communication systems. Very tragic.

Re:As was mentioned yesterday

[metlin]

Well, I'm writing this from Chennai/Madras which was hit quite badly (over 3000+ folks were killed from areas here and around).

The problem is that this region has never seen Tsunamis before, and most people were just curious to see what the hell was happening. That made it only worse - a lot of them were morning walkers who were wondering what's up with the sea.

If erudite urban folks are this naive, what can you expect off villagers? Actually, there is a story making the rounds of a guy from Singapore who called up his village and warned them about this, and they all moved to safety and nobody in the village was affected.

The problem is that, it is not enough if you had a warning system -- you would need to know what to do with it. It's not sufficient to warn people, you need to tell them where to go and what to do, too.

slowing rotation

[justforaday]

I seem to remember seeing something a few months ago about the earth's rotation slowing a bit -- something that the scientists can't seem to explain. Any chance this sort of thing could be related or a partial explanation?

Re:Makes me wonder

[Timesprout]

Only a fool would try to fly by pulling their hair upwards. Everyone knows you have to throw yourself at the ground and miss to fly.

Just the SCOPE

[Badgerman]

It's still hard to wrap my mind around the extent of the disaster.

It also is amazing just how much information we have at our fingertips from cell phones, cameras, the internet, and more. Had this happened twenty years ago, the sense of it would be different.

It's amazing seeing the global impact, and being aware of the global impact. The world is much smaller these days.

I am also heartened to see how the internet has given people information on how to help out. That, too, is different than what we would have faced twenty years ago. Let's hope it makes a difference.

3 microseconds less?

[Woogiemonger]

As if there wasn't too little time in the day already.

Re:Makes me wonder

[Enigma_Man]

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

Donate some money!

[immerrath]

I submitted a story with a link to a CNN page that lists organizations accepting aid for the Tsunami/Quake hit people, but it got rejected.

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."

Re:Donate some money!

[dmccarty]

No man is an island [...]

But if one were, he'd be about 100 feet farther away now.

Re:What is the impact?

[Soft]

What will be the impact of this on geostationnary satellites?

No more than usual perturbations, I suppose: geostationary satellites already tend to drift a little and need stationkeeping.

On the measuring of time?

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.)

On the GPS?

Don't know, but don't think the resolution is that precise.

It's all about angular momentum

[PhysicsGenius]

Angular momentum is conserved and is calculated by L = Iw where I is the rotational inertia, w is the angular velocity and L is the constant product. So if I goes up (and I will show in a minute how that happens), w must go down.

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.

Re:Over what time?

[arkanes]

You know what one rotation of the earth is called, right? One of those is 3 microseconds faster.

Micro gravity

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:What is the impact?

[Epistax]

On the GPS?

You press the degauss button. It'll look funny for a few seconds but then it'll click and be fine.

weather changes rotation 1000 times more

[peter303]

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.

Sensationalist Title

[kryzx]

Come on now, is it really good journalism to put the title "Quake Changes Earth's Rotation, Moves Islands" on this, because some dork theorizes that the quake may have accelerated the Earth's rotation, but the change would be too small to measure? Please.

And speaking of poor journalism, has anyone else noticed that Fox News has the epicenter of the quake totally wrong? They put it down near the bottom of Sumatra. I saw this on the first day and discounted it as early guesswork, but then I just saw it again last night (12/28), same graphic. I guess they just don't care.

Re:Indian ocean isnt the only place one is needed

[arivanov]

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.

Satellite Images

[KrackHouse]

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.

Re:Donations

[rednip]

I'm ashamed to be an American.

As you should be, you are clearly distorting the facts, and misusing a tradegy for you own purposes in a manner that is worthy of a Bush staffer. $35 million dollars is just in discressionary funds, Congress will meet shorty to approve more money from our Federal government, and of course this doesn't include private charity.

I dislike bush more than most, but you 'sir' are living proof that being 'left' doesn't make you 'right'.

Another estimate and what that means for Satalites

[StillNeedMoreCoffee]

Another estimate for the time change here.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-041 22 80221dec28,1,6119845.column

(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 /day

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 /day difference.

55.56 (feet /year) / 12 months = 4.63 (ft/month)

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) .1829 ft * 12 inches = 2.195 in/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

100% goes straight to the Red Cross

[Schlemphfer]

It says right on Amazon's front page, "100% of your donation will go to the American Red Cross."

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.

Re:100% goes straight to the Red Cross

[snorklewacker]

As I recall, the Red Cross is sitting on a huge pile of cash for 9/11 victims because they don't want to make them millionaires and the government said they can't use the money for relief efforts that aren't 9/11 related.

I doubt this -- the Red Cross has never earmarked funds for specific disasters before, refuses to do so now, and the government has absolutely zero power to tell the Red Cross what it can do with its own funds. They are a private agency, and they are absolutely fanatical about their independence.

The Red Cross has also never paid out directly to victims. The only direct assistance they do give is in the form of vouchers for food, clothing, shelter, and related items.

So you don't recall anything except what some other very wrong person made up or just repeated from some other mistaken or lying individual.

Well spotted.

[jotaeleemeese]

THe UK is donating 15 million dollars (after much pressure of the media and the general public).

This is the amount that football teams have paid for some top players in recent years:

Manchester United for Wayne Rooney: 54 million US$.
Manchester United for Rio Ferdinand: 58 million US$.
Real Madrid for David Beckham: 41 million US$.

Something is horribly wrong with this.

Re:Let's not make fun..

[stupidfoo]

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!)

Re:Let's not make fun..

[valmont]

All statistics you quote are government-donated funds. They do not take into account donations made from the private sector, companies and individuals. If you take those into account, America dwarfs everyone and leaves France far behind. Some countries tax their citizens more than others. Having grown-up in France, i know for a fact from both my parents that companies and individuals get taxed into oblivion.

Having built my professional life in America, I know I can easily donate to relief organizations without straining my budget too much, and most of the time, write it off on my U.S. taxes, which means money that would otherwise go to the U.S. government now goes to Red Cross, with Uncle Sam's benediction.

In the end, what matters is how much money relief organizations get, and which countries it's coming from. Let's see who's ahead in terms of income percentage.

I gave $250 to redcross via amazon as soon as it went up.

We're not martyrs. We're setting the record straight. And we're here to help.

Salon is here to slander and make sensationalistic headlines. That's what sells. Use grains of salt and don't take everything you read at face value, and most certainly not anything I write. Do your own research.

GODDAMMIT

[YrWrstNtmr]

This is not an international dick-waving contest to see who can 'contribute' the most. How about we just help them, OK?

Amazon waiving normal honor system fees

[Urgo]

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.

Front Page Link?

[TrevorB]

Amazon and Google, among others, have added front-page links to simplify donating to the disaster relief effort.

Perhaps Slashdot could do the same? After all, 80,000 dead and counting definately counds as "Stuff that matters."