Chile Quake Moves City 10 Feet

I was just reading this: Chile Quake moves city more than 10 feet over at CNN and couldn’t help but share.

The magnitude-8.8 earthquake that rocked the west coast of Chile last month was violent enough to move the city of Concepcion at least 10 feet to the west and the capital, Santiago, about 11 inches to the west-southwest, researchers said.

10 feet!  Can you imagine?  We all walk through our lives with certain preconceived ideas.  One of those would be the location of our home town.  Sure, 10 feet isn’t much, but it’s an entire town!  And it’s 10 feet further to the west than it was before!

And if that isn’t enough to blow your mind, read this:

NASA scientists have also credited the quake with shifting the Earth’s axis enough to create shorter days. The change is negligible, but still worth noting: Each day should be 1.26 microseconds shorter, according to preliminary calculations. A microsecond is one-millionth of a second.

Yep.  Now it’s affecting the length of the day and the rotation of the earth.

Gives me a whole new realization of how powerful earth quakes can really be.  And makes me glad I live in a relatively fault free, earthquake free zone.