BANDA ACEH, Indonesia, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- The tsunami that ravaged parts of Asia and Africa may have been powerful enough to affect the Earth's wobble, rotation and clock, seismologists said.
The water ram created by the magnitude 9 earthquake moved Sumatra's mainland as much as 120 feet. Hard-hit regional capital Banda Aceh now may be below sea level, said Paul Earle, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Service.
Scientists called Sunday's quake a "megathrust," the term used for the most powerful changes in the Earth's surface, the Times of London reported. A single snap released nearly two centuries of built-up pressure.
California Institute of Technology seismologist Hiroo Kanamori, who developed the currently used earthquake scale, said the quake likely affected Earth's rotation and wobble.
"The question is how much and can it be detected," Kanamori told the Los Angeles Times.
Ben Chao of NASA said one calculation suggested the quake would cut the length of day by three-millionths of a second and cause a pole shift of about 1 inch.
Scientists said it could take up to a year to measure tsunami-induced changes that will require new maps of Earth.
