Home

Home / Newsroom

Images

Global Maps

Features

News & Notes

Search
Browse News by Month / Year

News & Press

NASA Details Earthquake Effects on the Earth January 10, 2005 Dr. Benjamin Fong Chao, of NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. and Dr. Richard Gross of NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. said all earthquakes have some affect on Earths rotation. Its just they are usually barely noticeable. Any w orldly event that involves the movement of mass affects the Earths rotation, from seasonal w eather dow n to driving a car, Chao said. Chao and Gross have been routinely calculating earthquakes effects in changing the Earths rotation in both length-of-day as w ell as changes in Earths gravitational field. They also study changes in polar motion that is shifting the North Pole. The mean North pole w as shifted by about 2.5 centimeters (1 inch) in the direction of 145o East Latitude. This shift east is continuing a long-term seismic trend identified in previous studies. They also found the earthquake decreased the length of day by 2.68 microseconds. Physically this is like a spinning skater draw ing arms closer to the body resulting in a faster spin. The quake also affected the Earths shape. They found Earths oblateness (flattening on the top and bulging at the equator) decreased by a small amount. It decreased about one part in 10 billion, continuing the trend of earthquakes making Earth less oblate. To make a comparison about the mass that w as shifted as a result of the earthquake, and how it affected the Earth, Chao compares it to the great Three-Gorge reservoir of China. If filled the gorge w ould hold 40 cubic kilometers (10 trillion gallons) of w ater. That shift of mass w ould increase the length of day by only 0.06 microseconds and make the Earth only very slightly more round in the middle and flat on the top. It w ould shift the pole position by about tw o centimeters (0.8 inch). The researchers concluded the Sumatra earthquake caused a length of day (LOD) change too small to detect, but it can be calculated. It also caused an oblateness change barely detectable, and a pole shift large enough to be possibly identified. They hope to detect the LOD signal and pole shift w hen Earth rotation data from ground based and space-borne position sensors are review ed. The researchers used data from the Harvard University Centroid Moment Tensor database that catalogs large earthquakes. The data is calculated in a set of formulas, and the results are reported and updated on a NASA Web site. The massive earthquake off the w est coast of Indonesia on December 26, 2004, registered a magnitude of nine on the new moment scale (modified Richter scale) that indicates the size of earthquakes. It w as the fourth largest earthquake in one hundred years and largest since the 1964 Prince W illiam Sound, Alaska earthquake. The devastating mega thrust earthquake occurred as a result of the India and Burma plates coming together. It w as caused by the release of stresses that developed as the India plate slid beneath the overriding Burma plate. The fault dislocation, or earthquake, consisted of a dow nw ard sliding of one plate relative to the overlying plate. The net effect w as a slightly more compact Earth. The India plate began its descent into
Jan

2012

2013
Feb

2014
Mar

Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Tsunami Strikes Sri Lanka On December 26, 2004, tsunamis swept across the Indian ocean, spawned by a magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the coast of Sumatra. Aside from Indonesia, the island nation of Sri Lanka likely suffered the most casualties, with the death toll reported at 21,715 on December 29th. DigitalGlobes Quickbird satellite captured an image of the devastation around Kalutara, Sri Lanka (top), on December 26, 2004, at 10:20 a.m. local timeabout an hour after the first in the series of waves hit. A Quickbird image taken on January 1, 2004 (lower), shows the normal ocean conditions. Water is flowing out of the inundated area and back into the sea, creating turbulence offshore. Some near-shore streets and yards are covered with muddy water. It is possible that the image was acquired in a trough between wave crests. Imagery of nearby beaches shows that the edge of the ocean had receded about 150 meters from the shoreline. Credit: Images Copyright DigitalGlobe

Oct

Nov

Dec

Tsunami Destroys Lhoknga, Indonesia The Indonesian province of Aceh was hit hardest by the earthquake and tsunamis of December 26, 2004. Aceh is located on the northern tip of the island of Sumatra. The largest waves struck the northwestern coast of Sumatra. The town of Lhoknga, on the west coast of Sumatra near the capital of Aceh, Banda Aceh, was completely destroyed by the tsunami, with the exception of the mosque (white circular feature) in the citys center. Credit: Ikonos images copyright Centre for Remote Imaging, Sensing and Processing, National University of Singapore and Space Imaging.

converted by Web2PDFConvert.com

the mantle at the Sunda trench that lies w est of the earthquakes epicenter. For information and images on the Web, visit: http://w w w .nasa.gov/vision/earth/lookingatearth/ indonesia_quake.html For the details on the Sumatra, Indonesia Earthquake, visit the USGS Internet site: http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/bulletin/neic_slav_ts.html For information about NASA and agency programs Web, visit: http://w w w .nasa.gov ### Contacts: Gretchen Cook-Anderson/ Dolores Beasley Headquarters, Washington Phone: 202/358-0836/1753

Tsunami Damage in Northern Sumatra This pair of images from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASAs Terra satellite shows the Aceh province of northern Sumatra, Indonesia, on December 17, 2004, before the quake (bottom), and on December 29, 2004 (top), three days after the catastrophe. On December 17, the green vegetation along the west coast appears to reach all the way to the sea, with an occasional stretch of sand (white). After the earthquake and tsunamis, the entire western coast is lined with a purplish-brown border. The brownish border could be deposited sand, or perhaps exposed soil that was stripped bare of vegetation when the large waves rushed ashore and then raced away. Another possibility is that parts of the coastline may have sunk as the sea floor near the plate boundary rose. In places the brown strip reaches inland to a distance of about 2 miles. Credit: NASA MODIS Rapid Response team

This text derived from: http://w w w .nasa.gov

Feeds

Contact Us

About the Earth Observatory

Image Use Policy

Privacy Policy & Important Notices

The Earth Observatory is part of the EOS Project Science Office located at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center webmaster: Paul Przyborski | NASA official: Warren Wiscombe

converted by Web2PDFConvert.com