Monday, March 21, 2011

How far did Japan move?

Here's a neat illustration from Geocommons on the displacement in Japan from the March 11 earthquake.


The GPS data is from JPL and NASA and the attached caption reads: The displacement is both horizontal and vertical. The displacement in space ranges from just a fraction of a meter to more than 4 meters (24 ft).

Imagine the amount of energy necessary to shove tens of thousands of square kilometers of landscape a meter or more in a matter of seconds! 

3 comments:

  1. Cool. (Though 4 meters is only about 13 feet.)

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  2. Well tectonic plates usually only move aobut 70mm a year average. So 4m = 4000mm... Japan moved ALOT.

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    Replies
    1. Yeah but still, 24 feet is nearly 8 metres. Do NASA work on a 100 % error is close enough?

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