Ogelsby pointed out that “Changing a day by a millisecond means nothing to people on a practical level. The 1.26 microseconds that our day was shortened by with the earthquake in Chile is even smaller than a millisecond.” A microsecond is one millionth of a second.
Still, Ogelsby acknowledged that every minor change on the Earth, no matter how miniscule, will have some sort of effect, which in laymen’s terms is known as “the butterfly effect” (where the flapping wings of a butterfly in one corner of the earth will cause something on the other side of the planet).
The mass of the Earth is of a certain weight, Ogelsby said, and earthquakes on the magnitude of the one in Chile or the one in Sumatra (which caused the deadly 2004 tsunami) will affect the Earth’s speed.
“Imagine a figure skater spinning around. If she draws her hands in, she speeds up. If her hands go up or out, she slows down. Same thing if you are twisting around on a speed. If you draw yourself in, you spin faster than if you kick your legs out. And so everything that happens on the Earth affects everything on the earth.”
Humans Shake Climate More
“This was a huge earthquake. And the mass of the Earth did shift a bit, which affects the speed of the earth’s rotation. But I’m sure the effect it had is way less than the other factors that are changing our global climate, like our energy usage, our carbon footprint, the raw materials we use, the way we do or do not recycle. Those things have a way bigger immediate effect on our global warming crisis than these earthquakes,” he said.
According to National Geographic, 80 percent of the world’s earthquakes do occur around the rim of the Pacific Ocean because of the prevalence of volcanic activity and shifting of tectonic plates there.
Also, thousands of earthquakes occur every year, with quakes measuring 3-5 considered to be light, 5-7 being moderate or strong, and over 8 being great. An earthquake on the scale of the Chilean earthquake occurs once a year, said National Geographic’s website on earthquakes.
“Of course it’s dangerous to say that there’s never a relationship between earthquakes,” Ogelsby said.
“But these three earthquakes were geographically very far apart. And though we don’t have many as large as the Chilean one, we do have many in the 6 range, like the one in Taiwan. I would put my money on [the close time proximity] of these three earthquakes being a chance thing.”
This article is from our archive, originally published on an earlier date and highlighted here for its importance after Turkey/Syria massive earthquake.
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