http://sg.news.yahoo.com/0412
28/1/3pim1.html
Quake rattled Earth orbit, changed map of Asia: US geophysicist
An earthquake that unleashed deadly tidal waves on Asia was so powerful it
made the Earth wobble on its axis and permanently altered the regional
map, US geophysicists said.
The 9.0-magnitude temblor that struck 250 kilometers (155 miles) southeast
of Sumatra island Sunday may have moved small islands as much as 20 meters
(66 feet), according to one expert.
"That earthquake has changed the map," US Geological Survey expert Ken
Hudnut told AFP.
"Based on seismic modeling, some of the smaller islands off the southwest
coast of Sumatra may have moved to the southwest by about 20 meters. That
is a lot of slip."
The northwestern tip of the Indonesian territory of Sumatra may also have
shifted to the southwest by around 36 meters (120 feet), Hudnut said.
In addition, the energy released as the two sides of the undersea fault
slipped against each other made the Earth wobble on its axis, Hudnut said.
"We can detect very slight motions of the Earth and I would expect that
the Earth wobbled in its orbit when the earthquake occurred due the
massive amount of energy exerted and the sudden shift in mass," Hudnut said.
Another USGS research geophysicist agreed that the Earth would have got a
"little jog," and that the islands off Sumatra would have been moved by
the quake.
However, Stuart Sipkin, of the USGS National Earthquake Information Center
in Golden Colorado, said it was more likely that the islands off Sumatra
had risen higher out of the sea than they had moved laterally.
"In in this case, the Indian plate dived below the Burma plate, causing
uplift, so most of the motion to the islands would have been vertical, not
horizontal."
The tsunamis unleashed by the fourth-biggest earthquake in a century have
left at least 23,675 people dead in eight countries across Asia and as far
as Somalia in East Africa.
The tsunamis wiped out entire coastal villages and pulled beach-goers out
to sea.
The International Red Cross estimated that up to one million people have
been displaced by the natural calamity.
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sorry its a little long.