Earthquake 'redraws the map' & Penguins escape huge earthquake

news.bbc.co.uk...

The devastating earthquake that struck the Indian Ocean probably caused some islands to move by several metres.
The massive thrust of the tectonic plates may have heaved the Indian Ocean floor towards Indonesia by about 15m (50ft), seismologists think.

The movement is likely to have altered the geography of islands like Sumatra.

The force of the earthquake was probably also so great that it made the Earth wobble on its axis and cut our day length by fractions of a second.

Building pressure

The earthquake follows more than a century and a half of growing pressure between the Indian tectonic plate and the Burma microplate, upon which Sumatra, Nicobar and the Andaman Islands sit.

"In terms of the specific position of Sumatra, it will have moved," Bill McGuire, a geophysicist at University College London, UK, told the News@Nature website. "Things have shifted literally within minutes."

It is not only likely that these islands have shifted geographically, they may also be higher or lower than before, Professor McGuire believes.

Since the Burma microplate shot upwards during the quake, the Andaman and Nicobar Islands are likely to have been elevated. Slightly further from the fault itself, water levels indicate that the Indonesian city of Banda Aceh has sunk.

A team from the Southern California Earthquake Hazards Assessment Project (SCEHA) plans to visit the area to examine the changes with the help of the global positioning survey.

"The work will take weeks or months to complete," said Dr Kenneth Hudnut of SCEHA.

Changing wobble

According to US scientists, the deadly earthquake was forceful enough to accelerate the Earth's rotation, and may have made the planet wobble on its axis.

Richard Gross, a geophysicist with the US space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, believes a shift of mass toward the Earth's centre during the quake caused the planet to spin three microseconds faster and tilt about 2.5cm (one inch) on its axis.

The Earth's poles travel a circular path that normally varies by about 10m (33ft), so an added wobble this scale is unlikely to cause long-term effects.

"That continual motion is just used to changing," Dr Gross said. "The rotation is not actually that precise. The Earth does slow down and change its rate of rotation."

Scientists have long theorised that changes on the Earth's surface such as tide and groundwater shifts and weather could affect its spin, but they have not had the measurements to prove it.

"Even for a very large event, the effect is very small," said seismologist Hiroo Kanamori, from the California Institute of Technology. "It is very difficult to change the rotation rate substantially."

Beach disappearance

But images from space have already begun to reveal the exact nature of the changes wrought on the region.

In Indonesia and Thailand, whole sections of the coastline have been drastically altered, according to German satellite imaging specialists.

"In many areas where the tsunami had a lot of energy or was moving laterally to the shoreline, it has washed away beaches and rock, leaving underground material exposed to the sea and air," said Dr Stefan Voigt of the German Aerospace Center (DLR).

"We saw some islands and coral reefs washed away or drastically changed," he told the BBC News website.

In Indonesia, the tsunami created temporary lakes and wetlands, which have probably made some areas impassable to survivors and aid workers.

"In some places, where the topography was not very steep, the water travelled several kilometres inland," said Dr Voigt.

also news.bbc.co.uk...

An earthquake on a remote Antarctic archipelago home to 850,000 King Penguins was the strongest on earth in four years, seismologists say.
The quake hit 400km (250 miles) off the Macquarie Islands on Friday, measuring 8.1 on the Richter scale.

Penguins appear to have escaped a major disaster as the quake occurred deep under the sea, far from inhabited land.

There were no tsunamis, or large tidal waves, because the quake moved horizontally rather than vertically.

The tremors were felt in Tasmania, 1000km (600 miles) away, but because the epicentre was 10km underground, few observers noticed the initial quake.

10 BIGGEST QUAKES SINCE 1900
Chile, 1960: 9.5
Alaska, 1964: 9.2
Alaska, 1957: 9.1
Kamchatka, 1952: 9.0
Near Ecuador, 1906: 8.8
Alaska, 1965: 8.7
Tibet, 1950: 8.6
Kamchatka, 1923: 8.5
Indonesia, 1938: 8.5
Kuril Islands, 1963: 8.5
Source: US Geological Survey

Buildings on the islands shook for 15 seconds, seismologist Cvetan Sinadinovski said.

"If this had happened underneath a population centre it would probably have destroyed a whole city," he said.

The quake was the biggest anywhere on earth since an 8.4-magnitude tremor off the coast of Peru in June 2001. That killed 74 people.

Friday's earthquake was caused by the collision of two of the major tectonic plates which make up the earth's crust layer, the Indo-Australian and the Pacific plates.

The last quake of a similar magnitude in the Macquarie region was in 1924, Mr Sinadinovski said.

Despite its size, 22 staff of the Australian Antarctic Division slept through the tremors.

"Nobody felt anything," a spokesman said.

i thought of posting one of these news topics on atsnn but i think they wouldnt put it on so i thought of discussing it here.

the news speaks for itself, what id like to know is what you think.

[edit on 4/1/2005 by Channy]

no comment on speeding up the rotation of the earth or redrawing maps or 8.1 in the antartica?

Originally posted by Channy
no comment on speeding up the rotation of the earth or redrawing maps or 8.1 in the antartica?

Already been discussed to death elsewhere..please read the forum, rather than expecting us to recite the same thing again.

Regards,

Osiris

sorry about that then, i just like it when alot of people reply!