How Japan’s Earthquake Shifted the Earth’s Axis and Shortened the Day? According to NASA and Geological Survey

planet image
Planet image after Japan earthquake

From The New York Times, according to geophysicist ‘Ross Stein’ of  the ‘United States Geological Survey’ due to Japan’s devastating earthquake and tsunami last week, the island has been actually moved close to the United States and shifted the Earth’s axis. From the areas closest to the epicentre of the earthquake the island moved 13-feet closer to the United States.

About 15-miles cleft was caused by the quake below the sea floor that stretched out 186-miles long and 93-miles wide, this was a according to the AP.

Japan’s 8.9-magnitude quake was the world’s fifth largest earthquake in the history that caused the Pacific tectonic plate to dove under the North American plate.  According to NASA’s photo before and after the quake, the effect made Eastern Japan shifted towards North America by 13-feet .The quick made Japan sank downward about 2-feet, as eastern coastline sunk and shifted the axis of the earth by 6.5-inches, shortened the day by 1.6 microseconds.

Why did the Earthquake shorten the day?

The ‘earth’s m(–foul word(s) removed–)’ shifted towards the center, spurring the planet to spin a little bit faster. The m(–foul word(s) removed–)ive earthquake of 8.8-magnitudes in Chile last year also shortened the day but only an even smaller fraction of second. The quake in Sumatra in 2004 knocked huge 6.8-microseconds of the day.

Japan placed high-tech sensors around the country to observe even the slightest movements after the country’s 1995 earthquake. With this high-tech sensor scientists can easily calculate the quake’s impact even to the inch.

“This is overwhelming the best-recorded great earthquake ever,” said Lucy Jones, chief scientist of ‘Multi-Hazards’ project at the ‘U.S. Geological Survey’ to The Los Angeles Times.

This article attributed originally to ‘Lucy Jones’ interview to the ‘The Boston Herald’.

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