Posted on 11/27/2018 12:51:27 PM PST by ETL
In the two years since a magnitude-7.8 earthquake rocked New Zealand, the country's South Island has slid a smidgeon closer to its North Island.
As the Earth's crust continues to shift after its cataclysmic rupture during the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake, Cape Campbell on the northern side of the South Island has shifted nearly 14 inches (35 centimeters) closer to the city of Wellington, which sits across the Cook Strait on the North Island, said Sigrún Hreinsdóttir, a geodetic scientist at GNS Science, a research consultancy service in New Zealand.
The movement is too slow and subtle to be felt by humans, Hreinsdóttir told Live Science, but she and her colleagues have been measuring it with a combination of GPS sensors and satellite measurements. These measurements reveal that New Zealand is still feeling the effects of the 2016 quake, which killed two people when it struck just after midnight on Nov. 14. The measurements will also help scientists predict what size earthquakes New Zealanders could expect to face in the future, Hreinsdóttir said.
Complex crust
The Kaikoura quake was mind-bogglingly complex. It hit in a transition zone between two very different geologic regions, Hreinsdóttir said. In general, the country sits right on the edge of a subduction zone, where the Pacific plate grinds under the Indian-Australian plate. The border of this subduction zone runs along the east coast of the North Island. Meanwhile, the South Island hosts a strike-slip fault known as the Alpine Fault, where pieces of crust move horizontally in relation to one another.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Caused by climate change.
Thank you for posting a pic of the esteemed Dr. Hank Johnson. A man who truly understands plate tectonics, floating islands and load imbalance.
I was gonna reference him but ya beat me to it.
People must go wobbly at the knees when in the presence of an intellectual giant like Johnson lol. Gore too
Tectonic SHIfT haPPens.
drugs bad m’kay.
That should make the commute a little easier.
LA will be a San Francisco suburb in about a million years.
perhaps the ocean water is receding and it just appears they are moving closer together.
They can measure distance very accurately today using mirrors and lightbeams. Since they know the speed of light they simply calculate the time for the round trip. They do this to monitor continent movement and also the distance from earth to the moon.
I look forward to Hank giving a scientific presentation on islands.
One can learn so much.
About Democrat voters....
14 inches in 2 years - I’m glad she pointed out it’s too slow to be noticed by humans. That’s why she gets paid the big bucks!
Hey, that’s several times faster than your fingernails grow!
If it moves at 14in/2yrs smoothly and continuously you wouldn’t notice. But if it moves in irregular minor jerks every now and then over that 2 year period you might.
Saving the world that much gasoline use and pollution getting from one island to the other.
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