Shake, shake, shake them bones.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Okay, it significantly affected the rotation of the earth. Based on calculations, it's shifted the location of the north pole (I don't know if they geographic north or magnetic north) by about an inch, and sped the rotation of the earth up such that a day is now a little more than 2.5 microseconds shorter. It changed the shape of the earth, making it slightly more round (a greater trend, apparantly).

Yes, all earthquakes have these kinds of effects to some small degree. But this one's effects were noticebly measureable.

[Matterhorn Fan]

Geez, if these keep up, you're going to make last year's hurricanes look like nothing.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Oops, forgot the links.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2...earthquake.htm

http://news.space-explorers.com/display.asp?v=3&i=1&a=1

I like this stat:

To make a comparison about the mass shifted as a result of the earthquake and its effect on Earth, Chao compared 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 LOD by only 0.06 microseconds and make the Earth only very slightly less oblate. It would shift pole position by about two centimeters (0.8 inch).

More of an effect than the sudden appearance of 10 trillion gallons of water would have. I'd say that's significant.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

*swoons at GD's feet*

[Moonliner]

Nope sorry, nice attempt at misdirection but I'm not going for it.

Yes, the Indian Ocean quake had a measurable effect on the planet but that is NOT the issue here. The issue here is:

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

After a gigantic shift like the one in December, it's not surprising to see a little more activity for a while. I mean geez, it affected the rotation of the earth.

Please support your theory that the Indian Ocean quake had anything to do with the recent increased activity in Cali. Nothing in either link even suggests such a relationship. So show me the money, or let's see that dance

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by Moonliner

Please support your theory that the Indian Ocean quake had anything to do with the recent increased activity in Cali. Nothing in either link even suggests such a relationship. So show me the money, or let's see that dance

It's a little theory I like to call "Plate Tectonics." A major plate moved 30-55 feet in December. That's ridiculous. That's the kind of movement that generally takes centuries of "normal" earthquake activity to produce. And it's not some isolated system. Even though it was a quarter of the way around the world, all of these plates are interconnected and every movement affects those around them. Most of the time, that affect is miner and part of the general cycle of things. But a 9.1 quake HAS to have some far reaching affects.

Look at the earthquake activity since yesterday's Yucaipa quake. Specifically, look at the area around Sunday's Anza quake. Since the Yucaipa quake, the Anza zone has been more active. Rather, it's been the same frequency of shaking but with more intensity. Since Sunday, there have been a steady stream of small quakes, most of which have been below 1.5, the largest being 2.6. Since yesterday, the frequency of temblers >1.5 has increased, and there have been several of 2.6 or greater, including a 3.4.

Yes, it's circumstantial, but it doesn't take a whole lot of research to say "If this hunk of rock over here moves, and it's a) touching this other hunk of rock and b) causes this other hunk of rock to shake, then there's a good chance this other hunk of rock is gonna move too." And the recent activity supports that. Nevermind that whenever there's a large earthquake, almost invariably they are followed by increased activity on surrounding faults, even if those faults aren't directly connected to the fault causing the initial event.

Okay, so we have some evidence in a small area that larger than average earthquakes affect activity elsewhere, albeit somewhat geographically close. Now, yesterday's quake was a 4.9. The Indian Ocean quake was a 9.3. The scale is logrithmic. Every full point on the scale is a magnitude of 10 increase in strength. So, doing the math, the tsunami-inducing quake was 40,000 times stronger than yesterday's.

Definitive proof? No. But I stand by my statment. It's not surprising.

[Gn2Dlnd]

:jumping on the GD bandwagon: I'm not surprised by seismic activity after other seismic activity. No more "wow" factor. Now, I would be surprised if fire rained down from the sky. Were you surprised to find out that Anakin Skywalker was Darth Vader? Probably not, but what if they had done a switch, and it turned out that Jar-Jar Binks was Darth Vader? Bet you'd be surprised then! Oh, and the rotation of the earth stuff? Yeah, yeah, whatever. Had to reset all my clocks.

[Ghoulish Delight]

http://geology.about.com/library/weekly/aa022303a.htm

Some support for the phenomenon on a local level. It's a BIT of a leap to extrapolate to a global level, however, once again, we're talking about an entire plate moving 30-55 feet, whereas the affect mentioned above is caused by the simple movement of a foot or less of small portions of a plate. So it's not all that out there to theorize that this effect would scale to many orders of magnitude in scope with earth movement as extreme as that.

[Moonliner]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

Yes, it's circumstantial

Very good. Case closed.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Linky linky, I got more linkies!

http://www.seismo.unr.edu/ftp/pub/lo...mic-waves.html

Landers triggered earthquakes up to magnitude 5.5 throughout eastern California and Nevada, and in calderas as far away as Yellowstone.

The next link's pretty dry, and you'll want to increase your browser's font size.

http://www.agu.org/meetings/fm04/fm0...fm04_S23C.html