Chile Earthquake Earth Axis — The Chile earthquake that shook the South American country and killed more than 700 people last February 27 is believed to have shifted the Earth axis and shortened the day according to a National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientist.
Chile Earthquake Photo
According to Richard Gross, a geophysicist at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., who uses a computer model to calculate the earthquake effect, Earthquakes can shift hundreds of kilometers of rock by several meters, changing the distribution of mass on the planet and affects its rotation.
The Earth’s rotation was likely affected by the shift in the planet’s mass, which could cause it to spin faster.
The length of the day should have gotten shorter by 1.26 microseconds (millionths of a second), Gross, said today in an e-mailed reply to questions. The axis about which the Earths mass is balanced should have moved by 2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8 centimeters or 3 inches).
Scientists believe other quakes, such as the 9.1-magnitude Sumatra earthquake in 2004, have also decreased the Earth’s day. That quake is believed to have shortened it by 6.8 microseconds, and altered the axis by nearly 7 inches.
