By now you’ve heard about the massive earthquake that rocked Chile last month. You’ve heard about the damage that was done to several major cities. You’ve heard about the billions of dollars that will be required to get those cities back to the way they were before the quake.

But there are a couple of very interesting things that you may NOT yet know about that earthquake. Here’s the first: the quake moved the entire city of Concepcion, home to more than 200,000 people, 10 feet to the west. That’s right. An entire city moved 10 feet. Imagine if you woke up tomorrow morning and your bedroom was 10 feet west of where it is right now! And Concepcion wasn’t alone in its relocation, as no fewer than three other cities, including Santiago, Chile’s capital, moved at least a few inches.

There’s more. You see, NASA has determined that the earthquake actually shortened the length of a day AND changed the tilt of the earth’s axis ever so slightly. Neither effect is noticeable to the naked eye, but scientists have concluded that the length of a day is now 1.26 millionths of a second shorter, and that the earth’s figure axis deviated about three inches. Follow the link above to learn all about it from the fine folks at National Geographic.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 12:43 pm and is filed under Notes from Dom. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.