...and You Thought Time Flew Before the Chile Earthquake?

[MountainDon]

(March 1) -- Apart from claiming the lives of hundreds of people and wreaking enormous property damage, Chile's massive earthquake has likely altered the distribution of the Earth's overall mass, scientists from NASA say.

As a result, the length of a day is now a little shorter than it was before Saturday's magnitude 8.8 earthquake.

"The length of the day should have gotten shorter by 1.26 microseconds [millionths of a second]," Richard Gross, a geophysicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, told Bloomberg. "The axis about which the Earth's mass is balanced should have moved by 2.7 milliarcseconds [about 8 centimeters or 3 inches]."

The speed that the Earth rotates also increased slightly in 2004 following the earthquake that struck the off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia. That 9.1 earthquake shortened the length of an Earth day by 6.8 microseconds, scientists say.

The reason is that sudden changes in the dimensions of the Earth's tectonic plates, like those experienced in the earthquakes in Chile and Indonesia, can alter the velocity.

David Kerridge, the head of Earth hazards and systems at the British Geological Survey in Edinburgh, likened the change in rotation speed to what happens when a figure skater draws her arms in close to her body while spinning. "As she pulls her arms in," Kerridge told Bloomberg, "she gets faster and faster. It's the same idea with the Earth going around: If you change the distribution of mass, the rotation rate changes."

[peternap]

Thanks Don!
Just what I need...less time.

[StinkerBell]

I would think that the change of axis would affect the weather more than anything man made.

[fishing_guy]

I would think that the change of axis would affect the weather more than anything man made.

Shh Stink...

Don't say that so loud around the global climate changers.  They'll be dreaming up a way to force a 100.9 quake to put the weather back to the way it was in the 1890's.

[glenn kangiser]

A senator states that we already have the technology to cause earthquakes.

http://vodpod.com/watch/2659884-senator-states-weather-control-weapons-can-generate-earthquakes

and Sec of Defense Cohen     http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/esp_ciencia_tsunami19.htm

"Others are engaging even in an eco-type of terrorism whereby they can   alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves. "


Note that we, of course, control the best of these weapons.

[poppy]

So I guess in contrast, volcanic activity like island creation would cause the earth to slow down?