After Chile’s quake, South America’s surface was moved to the southwest
Researchers at Ohio University say that during the massive magnitude-8.8 earthquake that struck Chile on Feb. 27th, cities and islands in South America physically shifted west.
Geologists said the city of Concepcion was moved an estimated 10 feet west during the massive earthquake, after GPS measurements before and after the quake by teams of researchers from Universities across the Americas.
Chile’s capital, Santiago, moved just shy of a foot, and even Buenos Aires, in Argentina, moved an inch. The Falkland Islands also went a tad west.
Measurements used in the study were gathered at four different universities, as well as by several agencies and geophysicists on the ground in Chile. The earthquake is believed to be the fifth-most powerful quake since seismic tools have been widely used.
“The Maule earthquake will arguably become one of the, if not the most important, great earthquakes yet studied,” said Ben Brooks of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at the University of Hawaii.
“We now have modern, precise instruments to evaluate this event.”
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