Tsunami

[lit-bird]

Re, the terrible tragedy unfolding in SE Asia, and the fact that the earthquake apparently made the earth "wobble" on its axis and move it slightly out of kilter in its position in space, can any geophysicists out there tell me what implications this could have for the future of the planet? Is it possible, for example, that an even bigger quake or series of quakes could disturb the Earth's position in relation to the Sun etc. enough to cause its destruction? Sorry, if I sound more of an alarmist than a scientist!

[bernardo]

It could cause the Earth's axis to be tipped over more than it is already, which would mean greater extremes of temperature.  But the small changes to the Earth's axis would be insignificant (from a human observation point of view) compared with the devastation caused by the earthquakes and tsunmais themselves.  Eventually, the whole of the land and continents that we know now will be re-cycled and melted and broken up and swallowed into the Earth, and new land will be created as a result of stuff being spat out of volcanoes.  The whole process has been going on for thousands of millions of years, but each individual catastrophe is surmountable as long as people get out of the way.

[Thunderchild]

perhaps this is the sort of thing that killed the dinosaurs:

1 if the earth was swung out of axis so upsetting the dinosaurs habbitat or

2 the same thing on another planet happened and it collided with another planet causing the now known asteroidal belt and showering the solar system with big chunks.

so perhaps we better monitor outer space quakes hey ?

sorry if i got a bit off theme but this side reflection occured to me

[bazwillrun]

a sobering thought, as tsunamis go this one was a tiddler , the ones that have been predicted for the future eg when about a third of the island of Las Palmas crashes into the atlantic and sends a tsunami about a 100metres high and at around 3-400kmp/h to the east coast of the usa, now thats a worry. What we now class as disasters, have and will continue to shape the planet just as they have for the past 4.6 billion years, only difference is that as time has passed they have affected more people due to the ever increasing population.

As for people getting out of the way, the more people the less space there is to go to get out of the way.

Lets be honest, as global disasters go, we, in our short time here will be luck/unlucky depending how you look at it, to see anything REALLY big happen. If these events happen once in a million years thats nothing in the scale of things, but taken over 4.6 billion years thats an awful lot of events    

[gazgibbs]

In reply to the previous post. I would like to point out that you cannot predict tsunamis - only forecast them. There is a difference.