Michio Kaku: Earth Axis Shift Caused by Chile Earthquake

NASA say the Chile Earthquake was so powerful it shifted Planet off its axis & shortened the length of the day. Michio Kaku Explains The Earth Axis Shift Caused by the Earthquake. Chile Earthquake: Shock effect on Earth’s axis The earthquake that struck Chile on Saturday may have shifted the Earth’s axis and created shorter days. David Adam guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 2 March 2010- www.guardian.co.uk The earthquake that struck Chile on Saturday may have shifted the Earth’s axis and created shorter days, according to scientists at Nasa. Richard Gross, a geophysicist at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said the 8.8 magnitude quake could have moved the Earth’s axis by 2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8cm) enough to shorten a day by about 1.26 microseconds. A large quake can shift huge amounts of rock and alter the distribution of mass on the planet. When that distribution changes, it changes the rate at which the planet rotates, which determines the length of a day. “The length of the day should have got shorter by 1.26 microseconds,” Gross told the Bloomberg news agency. “The axis about which the Earth’s mass is balanced should have moved by 2.7 milliarcseconds.” Gross previously used the technique to estimate the shift caused by the 2004 Sumatran quake that caused the Indian Ocean tsunami. That 9.1 magnitude quake shifted the Earth’s axis by 2.3 milliarcseconds and shortened a day by 6.8 microseconds. David Kerridge, a seismologist with the British …