The earthquake that killed more than 800 people in Chile on Saturday had probably shifted the Earth’s axis and shortened the day, a National Aeronautics and Space Administration scientist said. Earthquakes could shift hundreds of kilometres of rock by several metres, changing the distribution of mass on the planet, Richard Gross said. That affected the Earth’s rotation. “The length of the day should have gotten shorter by 1.26 microseconds (millionths of a second). The axis about which the Earth’s mass is balanced should have moved by 2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8cm or 3in).” The magnitude 9.1 Sumatran earthquake on Boxing day in 2004 that generated an Indian Ocean tsunami had shortened the day by 6.8 microseconds and shifted the axis by about 2.3 milliarcseconds, Dr Gross said. The changes happened on the day and then carried on forever. - BusinessWeek