Earthquake in Chile Caused the Earth’s Axis to Shift And Made the Day Shorter
The earthquake in Chile was the fifth most powerful since the 1900s with an 8.8 on the richter scale. The earthquake was so powerful it caused the Earth’s axis to shift and changed the rotation speed of the earth causing the day to be shorter. Andreas Rietbrock, a professor of Earth Sciences at Liverpool University offers his insight on one of the most powerful earthquakes the world has witnessed. The death toll is currently at 700 which pales in comparison to Haiti but it was 500 times more powerful. Richard Gross, a geophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory stated,
“The length of the day should have gotten shorter by 1.26 microseconds (millionths of a second). “The axis about which the Earth’s mass is balanced should have moved by 2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8 centimeters or 3 inches).
It’s commonly referred to as the ice skater effect because a skater rotates faster by pulling their arms close to their body. However, in this instance the change in the distribution of mass causes the earth to rotate slower not faster. The magnitude 9.1 Sumatran in 2004 that generated an Indian Ocean tsunami shortened the day by 6.8 microseconds and shifted the axis by about 2.3 milliarcseconds according to Gross.