Literally earth-shaking, Tsunami quake shifted the North Pole, moved Newark, NJ, 1/2 inch

The Newark Star Ledger ^ | 12.31.04

[Coleus]

Beyond killing tens of thousands and unleashing a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions, the twinned earthquake and tsunami that struck Southeast Asia Sunday altered the angle of the Earth on its axis, moved the North Pole, pushed walls of water throughout all the world's oceans and shifted the soil as far away as Newark, researchers are reporting.

Scientists said yesterday they are looking beyond the tragedy to try to extract meaning from an event of such magnitude. They want to learn how the Earth responds as a system to one of Nature's terrible jolts. And they wonder about the Earth's resilience.

Calculations performed by Richard Gross of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California show that the quake sped up the rotation of the Earth and enlarged its wobble, causing the length of a day to shrink permanently by 3 millionths of a second. It also moved the North Pole 1 inch, he found.

Researchers at the Lamont-Doherty facility in New York, part of Columbia University, have been tracking earthquakes for decades and say their instruments showed that the quake rang the Earth like a bell. Seismic waves emanated from the epicenter, like ripples moving out from a pebble thrown onto a pond surface.

Armbruster, the Lamont-Doherty seismologist, said that, though he hasn't completed his analysis, he believes the quake moved the soil in the Newark and greater metropolitan area by a half- inch. The temblor on the other side of the world pushed the ground up that far, then back down the same distance. The movement was so swift, it was not noticed by residents of the region, he said.

A well-studied 1964 quake in Alaska of a greater magnitude moved the ground in New York up 2 inches and then down 2 inches, he said.

[First_Salute]

[Strategerist]

What on earth do you mean by "big boom?"

[rintense]

I agree. Plate techtonics is nothing more than a series of puzzle pieces. My theory is also that the energy wave an initially strong quake can be tracked across a plate, and that with distance, the intensity decreases. There were a series of quakes this year that demonstrated this. The initial quake started in the pacific, and the energy traveled from west to east, causing smaller quakes, each decreasing in magnitude, the greater the distance from the origin.

Basically, its all one energy chain reaction.

[nhoward14]

You know what that means to me... an economic spike in the tech sector as all the out of work software engineers are hired to fix all the programs.... maybe.

[Ethyl]

I wonder what these changes do or do not do to oil production around the world.

I wonder what it will do to the GPS, those pre-quake, do those need to be updated, or will the satelites change it for us? I have software in my GPS around the world, was the change miniscule enough not to matter, or do I need updated software?

[rintense]

Sorry, the large asteroid that his the earth and caused the dinos to go bye bye. Makes me wonder if, indeed, the pseudo nuclear winter-like result of the impact wasn't so much from the debris in the atmosphere as it was from an axis shift.

[pepsionice]

There isn't much doubt that Antarctica was in a different angle at one point, and a fertile land. The timing of when this occurred is questionable...but there isn't much doubt about this. But this tilt business is not an absolute thing...any number of earthquakes or meteors hitting the earth, can twist the angle slighly.

Just point into your mind a what-if situation. What if...four massive earthquakes occured within 24 hours and the tilt of the earth went south 2 degrees? The north pole would be nearer to Cold Lake, Canada...NY would be in the prevsious climate region of Montreal...Miami would move up on the climate location of North Florida and see more freezes. It doesn't take alot to make this scenario occur.

[SuziQ]

The East Coast is not in danger of tsunamis from earthquakes because the Atlantic doesn't have the plates sliding against each other like the Pacific has. I read that the biggest danger is from a landslide. It would have be be a HUGH one, but one thread earlier in the week mentioned a big chunk of the Canary Islands that loosened because of a volcanic eruption. If it goes, it could cause a tsunami that could threaten the Boston-New York coastline.

[Calpernia]

ping

[jwalsh07]

Calculations performed by Richard Gross of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California show that the quake sped up the rotation of the Earth and enlarged its wobble, causing the length of a day to shrink permanently by 3 millionths of a second.

FWIW, this is wrong. The rotation speed of the Earth is not a constant. It changes, mostly it slows down. But have no fear, Angular momentum is conserved even in the Meadowlands.

[Strategerist]

The East Coast is not in danger of tsunamis from earthquakes because the Atlantic doesn't have the plates sliding against each other like the Pacific has. I read that the biggest danger is from a landslide. It would have be be a HUGH one, but one thread earlier in the week mentioned a big chunk of the Canary Islands that loosened because of a volcanic eruption. If it goes, it could cause a tsunami that could threaten the Boston-New York coastline.

Hmm. Well, a lot of the above is sort of inaccurate or misleading, not your fault, largely due to the media, and some poor explanations from scientists I saw interviewed right after the Sumatra quake.

The Atlantic has plenty of plate boundaries. The main one, the Mid-Atlantic ridge between the Eurasian Plate and the North American Plate, is a spreading ridge where ocean bottom is created. The earthquakes there are relatively small and do not generate tsunamis.

In 1755 Lisbon Portugal was destroyed by a massive earthquake (Magnitude 8.7) and tsunami in the Atlantic that killed 50,000 plus people and changed world history.

It's unclear precisely where it orginated but it's related to the complex boundary of the Eurasian and African plates out in the Atlantic. Records were poor in North America in 1755 but there was a tsunami of some significance in North America from it. That quake or a similar one could happen again.

27 people were killed in Newfoundland in 1929 by an underwater quake that caused an underwater landslide, which then created a tsunami (the landslide also cut the transatlantic cables.) It's possible that landslides could occur on the continental shelf at any time, but fortunately they seem fairly rare.

The main reason the Pacific has so many more tsunami is it's filled with long "Subduction" zones where one plate dives under another. There's only one in the North Atlantic, between the Carribean and the Atlantic. This is still capable of generating tsunamis but it's a shorter zone and doesn't have the massive quakes possible underwater in the Pacific. However there have been very damaging tsunami in the Carribean; Port Royal Jamaica was wiped off the face of the earth by one in the 1700s.

Most tsunami experts believe a collapse of La Palma in the Canaries would cause a local tsunami but NOT one that could cause damage in North America. Unfortunately the media has seized on the couple of scientists that think it can like rabid dogs, and ignored the majority of scientists that disagree.

[Calpernia]

>>>This is a joke, right?

Yes. Coleus and I live in the joke of the USA.

Actually, it is more than likely posturing propaganda for that federal AID NJ wants to fund their Stem Cell research disguised as some type of 'relief fund'.

[Myrddin]

I wonder what it will do to the GPS, those pre-quake, do those need to be updated, or will the satelites change it for us? I have software in my GPS around the world, was the change miniscule enough not to matter, or do I need updated software?

The GPS satellites can receive updates from ground stations to adjust ephemeris data. I just received notification from Delorme with updated magnetic declination files for all my mapping products (Street Atlas USA 2003-2004). The north pole has moved enough that current software products and printed maps show an incorrect magnetic north deviation. Those updates were announced BEFORE the quake.

[The Red Zone]

Armbruster, the Lamont-Doherty seismologist, said that, though he hasn't completed his analysis, he believes the quake moved the soil in the Newark and greater metropolitan area by a half- inch. The temblor on the other side of the world pushed the ground up that far, then back down the same distance. The movement was so swift, it was not noticed by residents of the region, he said.

The "swifter" the motion, the more kinetic energy it would have (not the less) and thus the more jarring. Doesn't seem to compute.

[BIGLOOK]

I was worried that you'd unintentionally moved and would have to pay NY state taxes. Boston, however, is going to beat you out of the federal aid; Boston's $14 billion Big Dig is creating an inland flood.

Maybe the cod fishermen will move back to town.

[VeritatisSplendor]

causing the length of a day to shrink permanently by 3 millionths of a second

Not too impressive. This means that 2006 will arrive 1 millisecond sooner than it otherwise would have, and 3006 will arrive 1 second sooner. We won't gain a whole day from this until 80 million years from now.

Another way to look at it: The earth's rotation period is slowing by 15 microseconds per year due to tidal friction with the moon; so the quake had the effect of undoing about 10 weeks' worth of tidal friction. In 100 million years the day will be about 24 hours and 25 minutes long. (This means that at the time of the first dinosaurs, the day was 23 hours long.)

[Strategerist]

Oops the Port Royal Jamaica tsunami was in 1692, not the 1700s.

[Calpernia]

>>>I was worried that you'd unintentionally moved and would have to pay NY state taxes.

Now you had to go and give ideas! /teasing

Anything to give us more taxes ;)

>>>Boston, however, is going to beat you out of the federal aid; Boston's $14 billion Big Dig is creating an inland flood.

Don't worry. Our Statesmen can out temper tantrum their statesmen /wiza gurl

>>>Maybe the cod fishermen will move back to town.

Now that will get me off topic. I've not gone for cod yet and that is one of my favorite fish. I will make an effort to do this since PETA is screaming for fish to have equal rights now /hee hee

I'm off to bed.

You have a great night BigLook!

[timestax]

This story is so much B.S. The quake and tsunami combo was comparable to a speck of dust floating onto a beach ball

[FoxInSocks]

We won't gain a whole day from this until 80 million years from now.

Thanks for crunching the numbers! heehee