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Chilean Quake Likely Shifted Earth’s Axis, NASA Scientist Says

post #1 of 21
3/2/10 at 5:34am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
The earthquake that killed more than 700 people in Chile on Feb. 27 probably shifted the Earth’s axis and shortened the day, a National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientist said.

Earthquakes can involve shifting hundreds of kilometers of rock by several meters, changing the distribution of mass on the planet. This affects the Earth’s rotation, said Richard Gross, a geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who uses a computer model to calculate the effects.

“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 Earth’s mass is balanced should have moved by 2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8 centimeters or 3 inches).”
Well then...talk about long-term collateral damage!

Source: http://www.businessweek.com/news/201...tist-says.html
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post #2 of 21
3/2/10 at 5:37am
oh no!!!!
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post #3 of 21
3/2/10 at 5:43am
nvm found it
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post #4 of 21
3/2/10 at 5:50am
Chilean Quake Likely Shifted Earth’s Axis, NASA Scientist Says - BusinessWeek
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post #5 of 21
3/2/10 at 10:12pm
wow sounds scary
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post #6 of 21
3/2/10 at 10:25pm
no wonder i didn't finish my work in time today.. never knew it was shortened...
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post #7 of 21
3/2/10 at 10:55pm
It's the beginning of....... well I don't know but it starts now.
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post #8 of 21
3/2/10 at 11:00pm
I hope this doesn't scare the extremely hysterical into hiding in their bomb shelters... lol
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post #9 of 21
3/2/10 at 11:39pm
I was wondering if this was true.

Very interesting, thanks for sharing.
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post #10 of 21
3/2/10 at 11:44pm
I need to start a new racket so I can make billions to fight earthquakes. I think I can convince the public that mankind is responsible for them. I think showing a correlation between the rise in the earth's population and the rise in earthquake related deaths would be enough to convince people. I can just take a bunch of other statistics that change over the same period of time as my "scientific proof".

Anyone else want in?
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post #11 of 21
3/3/10 at 1:12am
For you guys that watched the movie 2012, the south pole ends up being in Wisconsin (or was it North Dakota?)
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post #12 of 21
3/3/10 at 1:26am
1 microsecond a day?, so 1 million days for 1 second? about 3 millenniums. and about 165 millenniums for 1 minute...assuming there are no more crazy earth quakes...
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post #13 of 21
3/3/10 at 1:33am
Quote:
Originally Posted by crapback View Post
I think showing a correlation between the rise in the earth's population and the rise in earthquake related deaths would be enough to convince people. I can just take a bunch of other statistics that change over the same period of time as my "scientific proof".
First, you must learn how to statisticulate.
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post #14 of 21
3/3/10 at 3:33am
That just sounds really dirty. I'll try as long as I don't have to do anything with anyone else's statisticuls.
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post #15 of 21
3/3/10 at 3:38am
Yeah, they said this with the 2004 Indonesian quake as well. It sounds far-fetched, but when you really think about it, the concept makes perfect sense: a large scale movement of mass on a "floating" spinning sphere in a vacuum would alter the spin just a tad. Even though it is a tiny change, the fact that there was a change is pretty interesting, as it really gives insight as to how powerful some of these quakes can really be.
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