One earthquake leads to another, even if the places where they happen are far apart in both time and place. The massive, 8.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Chile Feb. 27 occurred in an offshore zone that was under increased stress caused by a 1960 quake of magnitude 9.5. Also, The massive 8.8 earthquake may have changed the entire Earth’s rotation and shortened the length of days on our planet.
The quake, the seventh strongest earthquake in recorded history, should have shortened the length of an Earth day by 1.26 milliseconds, according to NASA’s Richard Gross. Other NASA officials say that “Perhaps more impressive is how much the quake shifted Earth’s axis.”
Strong earthquakes have altered Earth’s days and its axis in the past. The 9.1 Sumatran earthquake in 2004, which set off a deadly tsunami, should have shortened Earth’s days by 6.8 microseconds and shifted its axis by about 2.76 inches.Meanwhile, geologist Jian Lin says that the earthquake, some 300-500 times more powerful than the magnitude 7.0 quake in Haiti Jan. 12, ruptured at the boundary between the Nazca and South American tectonic plates. It was triggered when the
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