NASA Details Earthquake Effects on the Earth

Cuyamaca writes " NASA scientists, using data from the Indonesian earthquake calculated it affected Earth's rotation, decreased the length of day, slightly changed the planet's shape, and shifted the North Pole by centimeters. The earthquake that created the huge tsunami also changed the Earth's rotation." You now have 2.68 fewer microseconds each day to do whatever it is you do.

Comments

So that's why my watch is running slow.

[IO ERROR]

The researchers concluded the Sumatra earthquake caused a length of day change too small to detect, but it can be calculated. It also caused an oblateness change barely detectable, and a pole shift large enough to be possibly identified. They hope to detect the length of day signal and pole shift when Earth rotation data from ground based and space-borne position sensors are reviewed.

Too small to detect? Then why is my watch running slow?

Seriously, this means we'll need an additional leap second once every thousand years or so. Unless, of course, something else changes the length of the day, which will likely happen first.

Pangea

[sameerdesai]

I read on CNN science page that scientists normally look for big events like these (quakes measuring more than 9) in order to learn more about earthquakes. However it was extremely difficult to learn anything as most of the fault lines are deeply buried in ocean bed. Other theory is that these kind of pheneomenon was what resulted in formation of all the continents as we see today from a big land mass lump called Pangea which existed millions of years ago. Another theory is now that these continents are on move again getting closer to forming a big lump. Australia is on a collision course with Asia and North America with Europe. Africa is pushing up on Europse and reducing the Mediterranean region. Considering the technological knowledge this is really neat however considering human lives this is very very sad incident.