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[Merged] Chilean quake likely shifted Earth’s axis,


Still Waters

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The earthquake that killed more than 700 people in Chile on Feb. 27 probably shifted the Earth’s axis and shortened the day, a National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientist said.

Earthquakes can involve shifting hundreds of kilometers of rock by several meters, changing the distribution of mass on the planet.This affects the Earth’s rotation, said Richard Gross, a geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, who uses a computer model to calculate the effects.

“The length of the day should have gotten shorter by 1.26 microseconds (millionths of a second),” Gross, said today in an e-mailed reply to questions. “The axis about which the Earth’s mass is balanced should have moved by 2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8 centimeters or 3 inches).”

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If this is true that an earthquake such as this can have such an effect as to change the axis of the Earth then my argument made in the "LCROSS: The Moon is a Target" thread about the danger of causing man-made seismic events on the Moon being dangerous to the Earth/Moon relationship is made more credible, imo.

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I have heard of this before with other earthquakes. Yet, still have seen no proof of anything of the such.

Scientists have said that these axis shifts will make drastic changes to the earth, possibly going as far as reversing the seasons. At least this article doesn't make such claims.

Edited by 667-Neighbor of the Beast
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I KNEW IT. I work up the next morning thinking "WTF, no way was that 6 1/2 hours of sleep. I've been ripped off here".

Seriously, it's awe inspiring to contemplate the magnitude of these massive geological events. Makes me aware of what a tiny place humans occupy in the universe. (cliched, I know, but it's true)

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I don't see the just one Earthquake changing anything in the Earth's axis because you also have to remember that the axis too is based off of fields of magnetisum and gravity so one of the two would have to make a switch as well. Now I could how ever see how it might mess with the land's level of smoothness or disrupt the ocean currents causing tsunamis or volcano eruptions. Which if that's the case god forbid if a tremor or full on earthquake was to disrupt the volcanos in Yellowstone park which would trigger a catotrophic events of a chain reaction of earthquakes and finally awaken that super volcano. This would cause what's known as a nuclear winter and cause the earth to reflect the sun's rays and heat back at it which would freeze just about everything here on earth. Life as we know it would end or at least it would wipe out a good seventy to eighty percent of human kind and nature. And lastly on this topic, I don't see how this would effect our time or reverse the seasons? Seasons would have to be changed by my statement earlier. Time is magnetic and be distrupted by gravity too. rotation of the Earth would have speed up or slow down...and even if it did just by a millionth of a second, who in their right mind would ever notice? I know this a lot to discuss or disagree with but then again this is just one opinion. Now if you can show any kind of scientific data of how it effect the earth, the ocean currents, techtonic plates, nature in particular then it maybe cause me to be conviced but right now I'm not conviced nor impressed.

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The seventh strongest quake ever recorded may have shortened Earth days by about 126ms. The location of the quake combined with the angle of the fault were right for altering the rotation of our planet. Here is some interesting reading from Space.com via Yahoo News.

Edited by sinewave
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What we need to do, then, is have everybody on Earth run as fast as they can to the East for about 4 or 5 minutes, all at the same time, to slow the rotation back down to what it is meant to be.

Harte

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What we need to do, then, is have everybody on Earth run as fast as they can to the East for about 4 or 5 minutes, all at the same time, to slow the rotation back down to what it is meant to be.

Harte

Lol! Maybe we should also jump up and down all at once a few times see if we can get her back on kilter.

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I'm all for doing jumping jacks to get my 126ms of lost time back. <_< How dare they rob me of this precious time!

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there is alread a topic dealing with this subject.

http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=176836&pid=3312170&st=0entry3312170

that is the link to the topic that is already closely related to this topic.

Yep, you are right. :) I guess I did not look far enough before posting.

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Didn't they say the same thing about the quake that cause the Boxing Day tsunami?

I knew something was up. The years have got shorter.

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Didn't they say the same thing about the quake that cause the Boxing Day tsunami?

I knew something was up. The years have got shorter.

:lol:

To put things in perspective:

It will be approximately 68,571,428,571 days before this change will result in a loss of time equivalent to 24 hours.

Everything affects the Earth's rotation. You walking from your living room to your kitchen does, so does stubbing your toe on the freezer. Given that, there's actually a group (IERS) that regularly meets to calculate how many seconds are required to be added to UTC to keep us in sync with Solar Time. Between 1972 and now, 24 seconds have been added in to do just that. Now compare that to the 460 microseconds lost per year as a result of this earthquake; it's not too significant, right?

Edited by Raptor
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What we need to do, then, is have everybody on Earth run as fast as they can to the East for about 4 or 5 minutes, all at the same time, to slow the rotation back down to what it is meant to be.

Harte

i just choked on ginger ale reading this, hahahahha

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I know the time thing isn't really anything...but just the thought that an earthquake can make such a change is kinda kool

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The article I read about this is that the scientists said it effected the length of the day, however they are unable to measure to that amount so it is all theory. In otherwords, they can't prove it.

http://www.startribune.com/world/85961757.html

That's misleading. We know that the earthquake has affected the rotation of the Earth, the physics behind it is actually very simple (the conservation of angular momentum - think of an ice skater spinning on ice, if their arms are out wide they spin slower than if their arms are tucked in). The question is "How much has it affected it?", which is a tricky question to answer because measurements can not be taken with such precision, compounded by the fact that the rotation of the Earth is always changing anyway so it would be difficult to isolate the exact effects caused by this single earthquake.

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:lol:

To put things in perspective:

It will be approximately 68,571,428,571 days before this change will result in a loss of time equivalent to 24 hours.

Everything affects the Earth's rotation. You walking from your living room to your kitchen does, so does stubbing your toe on the freezer. Given that, there's actually a group (IERS) that regularly meets to calculate how many seconds are required to be added to UTC to keep us in sync with Solar Time. Between 1972 and now, 24 seconds have been added in to do just that. Now compare that to the 460 microseconds lost per year as a result of this earthquake; it's not too significant, right?

exactly right. now there's still one thing that is lurking in the back of my mind after looking at the fault lines *tectonic plates* throughout the Earth and then I looked at the fault line and epi-center of the earthquake in Chilie. If I was looking at it correctly, it runs in conjuction with the San Andraus <-- hope that's right, fault line in California. If I was a scientist or geologist I would look at that fault line to show some kind of movement here soon. Sure earthquakes aren't anything new and never will be anything new, but if I was to take a wild guess, that would be the next fault line to shift. Hopefully it'd be something like a 1.0 to a 6.0 but anything bigger would make a significant change or shift in the ground level. Just a thought from thinking more on the side of science and not just pure conspriacy.

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That's misleading. We know that the earthquake has affected the rotation of the Earth, the physics behind it is actually very simple (the conservation of angular momentum - think of an ice skater spinning on ice, if their arms are out wide they spin slower than if their arms are tucked in). The question is "How much has it affected it?", which is a tricky question to answer because measurements can not be taken with such precision, compounded by the fact that the rotation of the Earth is always changing anyway so it would be difficult to isolate the exact effects caused by this single earthquake.

I'm not questioning the physics here, but there are probably more things that impact the length of a day (the speed of Earth's rotation). For example the moon's force on the Earth, sending satallites/materials into space. Point being that there is more to factor into then just an Earthquake. Also what tpye of Earth shift was it? was it subversion where it pushed some of the mantle into the Earth or was it the type that creates mountains? That wil have an impact as well. It kind of makes you wonder what the length of the day was when the Himalyas were smaller. Which brings me to another point that if the Earth was being pulled and is a closed system, the plate would be recycled which in turn would have even less of an impact from a quake.

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What we need to do, then, is have everybody on Earth run as fast as they can to the East for about 4 or 5 minutes, all at the same time, to slow the rotation back down to what it is meant to be.

Harte

Or superman can do his thing and fly around at hyperspeed :)

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Or superman can do his thing and fly around at hyperspeed :)

lol first post and its a smart a** comment :D you are going to fit in well here :tu: welcome to the forum. :alien:

Edited by zenfahr
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I have heard of this before with other earthquakes. Yet, still have seen no proof of anything of the such.

Scientists have said that these axis shifts will make drastic changes to the earth, possibly going as far as reversing the seasons. At least this article doesn't make such claims.

Wrong, slight changes in the axis will not make drastic changes to the earth. If a drastic change in the axis happened then it would have drastic changes to the earth. Things are actually pretty simple.

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Im waiting for the next big one and Im just going to Jump up just before it starts ! And when its over I should be in the next state of mind. Right?

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The change in the Earths axis should not effect the BBQ grilling done in Texas!

Now if it did, WE would have a problem! :P

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  • 2 weeks later...

there is a rumor among the highschools here in my country, they say that someone "predicted" the chile earthquake and said that another major earthquake will happen in el salvador shifting the axis alot making the sea move and drown central america...

loads of bull if you ask me, i just wanted to share the rumor ^_^

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