[Coleus]

The Star Ledger .xml links are usually on line for only 14 days, if you want to save it do it now.

Can a Tsunami hit New Jersey? Can the Continental Shelf stop it? And what kind of provisions, alert system and emergency plan does the NJ State Police, National Guard, Port Authority, municipal and county Police and US Coast Guard have planned. Call them up this week and find out, I bet they have none.

[Rightone]

The sky is falling.

[MikefromOhio]

The continental shelf would probably make it worse...not stop it..

Unfortunately with something that has apparently changed the Earth is such a way, you have to think that eventually everything will to back to the way it was. Will it take another big quake to do so?

that is the question...

[BerniesFriend]

Santa falls down and go boo...

[FreedomCalls]

Calculations performed by Richard Gross of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California show that the quake sped up the rotation of the Earth and enlarged its wobble, causing the length of a day to shrink permanently by 3 millionths of a second.

Does this mean my employer will dock my pay for the shorter day?

[isthisnickcool]

I wonder what these changes do or do not do to oil production around the world.

[ForGod'sSake]

And what kind of provisions, alert system and emergency plan does the NJ State Police, National Guard, Port Authority, municipal and county Police and US Coast Guard have planned.

Just as important, what do you have planned for you and your family for such contingencies? And our neighbors? Do you ever wonder if we aren't becoming too dependent on the state?

FGS

[martin_fierro]

moved Newark, NJ, 1/2 inch

Prompting Jim McGreevy to ask his Sex Toy du Jour, "Was it good for you?"

[rintense]

If a 9.0 mag. quake can shift the earth's axis, then isn't it entirely plausible that the prehistoric 'big boom' could have also shifted the axis, thus not only starting the ice age, but also shifting the axis so much that once fertile lands (possibly Antarctica) were also shifted?

What if the entire theory of the break up of Pangea (or Gondwanaland) is wrong? What if the continents drifted differently and the big boom shifted the continents to where they are now by altering the original axis???

[BIGLOOK]

This is a joke, right?

[Windcatcher]

A 3ms change in the earth's spin rate will likely play h*ll with all manner of satellite tracking and timing, including GPS, I would imagine. I can only imagine all the software changes and adjustments that will have to be made for all of the satellites the world uses.

[First_Salute]

[SuziQ]

The East Coast is not in danger of tsunamis from earthquakes because the Atlantic doesn't have the plates sliding against each other like the Pacific has. I read that the biggest danger is from a landslide. It would have be be a HUGH one, but one thread earlier in the week mentioned a big chunk of the Canary Islands that loosened because of a volcanic eruption. If it goes, it could cause a tsunami that could threaten the Boston-New York coastline.

[Calpernia]

ping

[jwalsh07]

Calculations performed by Richard Gross of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California show that the quake sped up the rotation of the Earth and enlarged its wobble, causing the length of a day to shrink permanently by 3 millionths of a second.

FWIW, this is wrong. The rotation speed of the Earth is not a constant. It changes, mostly it slows down. But have no fear, Angular momentum is conserved even in the Meadowlands.

[The Red Zone]

Armbruster, the Lamont-Doherty seismologist, said that, though he hasn't completed his analysis, he believes the quake moved the soil in the Newark and greater metropolitan area by a half- inch. The temblor on the other side of the world pushed the ground up that far, then back down the same distance. The movement was so swift, it was not noticed by residents of the region, he said.

The "swifter" the motion, the more kinetic energy it would have (not the less) and thus the more jarring. Doesn't seem to compute.

[VeritatisSplendor]

causing the length of a day to shrink permanently by 3 millionths of a second

Not too impressive. This means that 2006 will arrive 1 millisecond sooner than it otherwise would have, and 3006 will arrive 1 second sooner. We won't gain a whole day from this until 80 million years from now.

Another way to look at it: The earth's rotation period is slowing by 15 microseconds per year due to tidal friction with the moon; so the quake had the effect of undoing about 10 weeks' worth of tidal friction. In 100 million years the day will be about 24 hours and 25 minutes long. (This means that at the time of the first dinosaurs, the day was 23 hours long.)

[timestax]

This story is so much B.S. The quake and tsunami combo was comparable to a speck of dust floating onto a beach ball

[jongaltsr]

People trying to impress us with how smart they are.
I'm not buying any of this information. They don't
know all of the factors and are just speculating...

[Jew4GWB]

It must be global warming -- brought on by Bush and the evil capitalists! =)

[First_Salute]

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/savageearth/hellscrust/