The Feb. 27 magnitude 8.8 earthquake in Chile may have shifted Earth's axis. It is calculated that the quake should have moved Earth's figure axis (the axis about which Earth's mass is balanced) by 2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8 centimeters). Earth's figure axis is not the same as its north-south axis; they are offset by about 10 meters.
This has shortened the length of each Earth day: Jet Propulsion Laboratory research scientist Richard Gross computed how Earth's rotation should have changed as a result of the quake. He and fellow scientists came up with a calculation that the quake should have shortened the length of an Earth day by about 1.26 microseconds (a microsecond is one millionth of a second).
By comparison, Gross said the 2004 magnitude 9.1 Sumatran earthquake that created the huge tsunami should have shortened the length of day by 6.8 microseconds.
To make a comparison about the mass that was shifted as a result of the earthquake, and how it affected the Earth, he compares it to the great Three-Gorge reservoir of China. If filled, the gorge would hold 40 cubic kilometers (10 trillion gallons) of water. That shift of mass would 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 would shift the pole position by about two centimeters (0.8 inch)
"Any worldly event that involves the movement of mass affects the Earth's rotation, from seasonal weather down to driving a car," one of Gross's colaborators said.
(Data from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
I look in the dictionary the word interrelationship:
"mutual or reciprocal relation or relatedness"
Does everything have an influence on everything else, no matter how small influence it could be?......does that imply that all is inter-related?......what is the relationship of interrelation with "oneness"?.....
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