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Earth's Slowing Rotation Could Cause Huge Earthquakes in 2018

posted by CoolHand on Wednesday December 27 2017, @04:58PM   Printer-friendly
from the shake-rattle-and-roll dept.

mrpg writes:

https://nypost.com/2017/11/21/earths-slowing-rotation-could-cause-huge-earthquakes-in-2018/

High-budget Hollywood disaster flicks love to make up weird natural phenomena to vaguely explain why a bunch of crazy catastrophes are about to threaten the very existence of mankind, but they're almost always complete bunk. Now, a new study featuring actual science suggests that 2018 could see a spike in huge earthquakes around the globe and it's thanks to the Earth's rotation slowing down.

The research, which was presented in a paper by scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of Montana at Missoula, focuses on historic earthquake trends and seems to draw a pretty strong link between periods of slower Earth rotation and rashes of major quakes.

It sure sounds like a sci-fi plot point, but the science is based purely in reality. The study's authors plotted earthquake activity going back over 100 years and thanks to the wealth of data available they were able to determine that the temporary slowing of Earth's rotation seems to be linked to the most devastating and frequent earthquake outbreaks.

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  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @05:21PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @05:21PM (#614795)

    Now we have earthquake proof buildings made out of rubber. And if we don't, we should!

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @05:54PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 27 2017, @05:54PM (#614804)

    That would be cool... Until the rubberband snaps back and shoots you 30 miles into the next county.

  • (Score: 4, Funny) by EvilSS on Wednesday December 27 2017, @05:57PM (1 child)

    by EvilSS (1456) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday December 27 2017, @05:57PM (#614805)
    Unfortunately all the inhabitants died from blunt force trauma as their building shook them and their belonging around like a bounce house in a tornado. The buildings, however, survived and are expected to have plenty of office space and apartments available as soon as the blood is all cleaned up.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 28 2017, @09:45PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 28 2017, @09:45PM (#615275)

      their building shook them and their belonging around like a bounce house in a tornado.

      Oh, please have a camera rolling!

      The buildings, however, survived and are expected to have plenty of office space and apartments available as soon as the blood is all cleaned up.

      Infrastructure is costly to rebuild.* This way you just hose the place down, and ready to lease! Seven and a half billion people on the planet will fill that space in no time. I don't see a problem.

      *remember the neutron bomb?

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 28 2017, @12:01PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 28 2017, @12:01PM (#615067)

    Time to invest in rubber bricks and rubber mortar stocks.