Posted on 03/02/2010 6:51:32 AM PST by greatdefender
(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 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."
The earth’s rotation currently slows at a rate of 1.4 milliseconds/century, so this quake and the Sumatra quake have erased a couple of years’ worth of frictional slowing.
So let me know when we need to add a February 30th.
Now how am I gonna get all my work done?
If an earth quake can accelerate the rotation with a certain movement or change in placement of mass, isn't it equally likely to slow the rotation with an opposing change from a different shift in tectonics? And how the heck does NASA measure this change so deep inside earth's crust? I'm a bit skeptical.
Is GPS satellite data precise to the microsecond? I don't think so.
watch the UN and Obama will now say that if Global Climate Change Provisions willnot pass the world will come to an end. See the days are getting shorter because man caused the earthquake in Chile. They will say it was a man caused disaster. The same strategy for Universal Health care. better known as the New World Oreder one World Government
Maybe this Mayan thing isn’t so crazy.
earthquake has likely altered
no proof as always....has likely...is a guess but is it educated?
Maybe, but was this expected?
I thought it was getting darker earlier.
Assuming the earth continues to slow at the current rate, we will need to add a full day around the year 5,760,002,010 (give or take a few years).
LLS
Maybe they could get Mike Moore to move to Europe to balnace things out....
Fascinating!
I’m sure it hasn’t been a linear slow-down, but if it had been been then the Earth’s day would have been nearly 20 minutes shorter 4.5 billion years ago.
I think they measure the rotation against the fixed stars. It wouldn’t be hard to get it to below microsecond precision.
Amo 8:9 And it shall come to pass in that day, saith the Lord GOD, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day:
Isa 24:1 Behold, the LORD maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down...
Luk 21:25 And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring;
Luk 21:26 Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken.
Isa 24:20 The earth shall reel to and fro like a drunkard, and shall be removed like a cottage; and the transgression thereof shall be heavy upon it; and it shall fall, and not rise again.
Isa 13:13 Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.
I THOUGHT I felt more tired than usual when I got up this morning. Is there anybody I can sue?
It isn’t linear. That long ago, the earth’s day was actually less than 12 hours (closer to 7 hours).
Please tell me that it was the work part of the day that was shortened!!!
that’s definitely caused by man made global warming...
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