Trivia
HardWhich Of These Natural Disasters Has The Potential To Change The Length Of The Day?
Answer: Earthquakes
The length of a day seems like a fixed value, being determined by the length of time the planet rotates. Surely no natural disaster could change the Earth to the point that it changes its rotation?
While such a change is beyond the power of lesser natural disasters like still-formidable hurricanes, there is one natural disaster with the power to change the length of a day: high-magnitude earthquakes. A recent example of one such event was the massive 8.9 magnitude earthquake that struck northeastern Japan in the spring of 2011.
The amount of mass moved by the Japanese earthquake was so vast that it actually accelerated the rotation of the Earth. As a result of the mass shift and the acceleration that followed, the length of an Earth day was shortened by 1.8 microseconds.
What does that kind of shift look like when taken out of the context of time and put into the context of physical space? The 2011 earthquake was so powerful that it moved Japan’s main island by about 8 feet and shifted the figure axis of the Earth by around 6.5 inches (17 centimeters).
Trivia
HardThe Inventor Of Which Technology Thought Very Poorly Of His Invention?
Trivia
Very HardWhich Empire Ruled Over The Largest Percentage Of Earth’s Population?
Trivia
HardWhat Will Outnumber People By 2019?
Trivia
HardWhich Song Was Requested By Carl Sagan But Not Included On The Voyager Records?
Trivia
EasySome Plants Use Chemical Signals To Call What To Their Defense?
Trivia
HardThe Only Country With An Invasive Herd Of Hippopotamuses Is?
Trivia
HardSpider Silk Was Once Used For What Military Purpose?
Trivia
HardWhich Star Trek Actor Is Responsible For Inventing The Klingon Language?
Trivia
EasyWhat Distinguishes Venus and Uranus From All Other Planets In Our Solar System?
Trivia
Very HardThe Cinnabar Moth Has Been Actively Introduced To Regions As A Tool For Controlling?