NASA Details Earthquake Affects on the Earth

[G_j]

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050110/dcm017_1.html

Press Release Source: NASA


NASA Details Earthquake Affects on the Earth
Monday January 10, 11:26 am ET


WASHINGTON, Jan. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- 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.
Dr. Benjamin Fong Chao, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. and Dr. Richard Gross of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. said all earthquakes have some affect on Earth's rotation. It's just they are usually barely noticeable.

"Any worldly event that involves the movement of mass affects the Earth's rotation, from seasonal weather down to driving a car," Chao said.

Chao and Gross have been routinely calculating earthquakes' effects in changing the Earth's rotation in both length-of-day as well as changes in Earth's gravitational field. They also study changes in polar motion that is shifting the North Pole. The "mean North pole" was shifted by about 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) in the direction of 145 degrees East Latitude. This shift east is continuing a long-term seismic trend identified in previous studies.

They also found the earthquake decreased the length of day by 2.68 microseconds. Physically this is like a spinning skater drawing arms closer to the body resulting in a faster spin. The quake also affected the Earth's shape. They found Earth's oblateness (flattening on the top and bulging at the equator) decreased by a small amount. It decreased about one part in 10 billion, continuing the trend of earthquakes making Earth less oblate.

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[Coventina]

1. That is amazing!

Wow....just....wow....

[ewagner]

2. I had no idea

earthquakes could affect the earth's rotation.....

That's just frightening.........

[Desertrose]

3. thanks G_j

....more proof that everything is connected here on good ol' planet earth:)

:hi::loveya:DR

[G_j]

4. yes it is DR!

I love your spiral nebula icon btw, quite fitting.

:hi::loveya: G_j

[Pow_Wow]

5. "Earth still vibrating after Asia quake"

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=650823

Earth still vibrating after Asia quake

Sun Jan 9, 2005 07:11 AM GMT


MELBOURNE (Reuters) - Two weeks on, the Earth is still vibrating from the massive undersea earthquake off Indonesia that triggered the tsunami, Australian researchers say.
The Australian National University (ANU) said the reverberations were similar in form to the ringing of a bell, though without the sound, and were picked up by gravity monitoring instruments.

"These are not things that are going to throw you off your chair, but they are things that the kinds of instruments that are in place around the world can now routinely measure," said ANU Earth Sciences researcher Herb McQueen on Sunday.

"It is certainly above the background level of vibrations that the earth is normally accustomed to experiencing."

The magnitude 9.0 earthquake, the strongest for 40 years, struck off the coast of Indonesia's Sumatra island on December 26. The tsunami it generated claimed more than 156,000 lives.

McQueen said the oscillation was fading and at current levels equated to about a millimetre of vertical motion of the earth.

Immediately after the quake the oscillation was probably in the 20 to 30 cm motion range that is typically generated in the earth by the movements of the sun and moon.

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[G_j]

6. interesting

thanks

[ElsewheresDaughter]

7. the "Butterfly Effect" ?..........

""Any worldly event that involves the movement of mass affects the Earth's rotation, from seasonal weather down to driving a car," Chao said."



http://www.fortunecity.com/emachines/e11/86/beffect.html

The "Butterfly Effect" is the propensity of a system to be sensitive to initial conditions.Such systems over time become unpredictable,this idea gave rise to the notion of a butterfly flapping it's wings in one area of the world,causing a tornado or some such weather event to occur in another remote area of the world.



Does the Flap of a Butterfly’s Wings in Brazil set off a Tornado in Texas?


The Butterfly Effect. The "Butterfly Effect", or more technically the "sensitive dependence on initial conditions", is the essence of chaos. ...
www.cmp.caltech.edu/~mcc/chaos_new/Lorenz.html

[G_j]

8. good reading

and something to think about.
Of course the recent earthquake was no butterfly, but were there 'butterflies' that effected it?
We may never know for sure.