Did the Chile Earthquake Knock Earth off Axis?

By James Sheldon on March 2nd, 2010

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That’s a great question, Manolith readers!

Let’s step into the lab, and get lost in an unending cycle of speculation! I love science. I do. I’m fascinated by it. But give me a few more enjoyable “what ifs” and possibilities to chew on.

Beyond the tragedy of the 8.8 magnitude quake that rocked Chile, and the subsequent tsunami that claimed even more lives, NASA has informed the scientific community and general public, that the quake popped the earth’s surface hard. Hard enough to slightly deviate the axis of the oblique spheroid we all call home. This conversation is one of a recyclable nature, and after every large quake, geologists often state that the day was possibly shorter due to the event. No, not figuratively. Literally shorter–by microseconds.

The general consensus for the Chile quake is that it may have bumped the earth’s axis by 3 inches, making the earth turn faster, thus making the day 1.26 microseconds shorter. Seriously. How long is a microsecond, you ask? 1/1,000,000 of a second. Faster than you can blink your eyes, faster than Steve Jobs can admire his own work, but not faster than Kim Kardashian crashed Reggie Bush’s post-Super Bowl interview. Did you see that crap?

Theories have abounded and continue to abound about the shift in the earth’s poles. Could the earth flip? The north pole becoming the south pole and vice versa? Man. That would suck for Google Maps. And for those of us living in the northern hemisphere, we’d have to adjust to the toilets swirling in the opposite direction. Ugh. Then there is the Polar Shift theory, when the poles would disappear completely, leaving the earth to become a chaotic rollie pollie between the index finger and thumb of a 5-year-old. This would happen in two years, of course, as predicted by the Mayan calendar.

In the meantime, if you’re less concerned about the earth’s axis, and more concerned about helping out a few people in Haiti or Chile, the American Red Cross has their science down to an art.

(Image via: NY Daily News)