Could Earth’s inhabitants be in store for more earthquakes in the years to come? Some scientists are floating a theory that the slowing of Earth’s rotation over time could lead to more earthquake activity in the future.
Read on to learn more about what researchers have learned about the speed of Earth’s rotation, as well as how it could potentially affect the number and severity of earthquakes in the future.
The rate at which our planet turns on its axis doesn’t vary much over time. In fact, the changes that have been noticed throughout history usually only caused a difference in the length of a day by around a millisecond or less. But over the past several years, scientists have noted a distinct change in the rotation speed, with the planet turning gradually more slowly as time goes on. Eventually, billions of years from now, they believe that the average month will be 47 days long instead of our current 30.
Some scientists believe the Earth’s spin is slowing down because the Moon is moving away gradually as the years pass by, affecting the gravitational pull between the Earth and its Moon.
Others posit that the temperature or makeup of the Earth’s core, deep at the center of our planet, could be changing slowly. This change could, in turn, causing a change in the speed of the planet’s rotation.
So, how could the Earth’s rotation speed affect our weather and our potential for more earthquakes? Scientists at the University of Montana in Missoula and the University of Colorado at Boulder, Dr. Rebecca Bendick and Dr. Roger Bilham, claim that earthquakes with a magnitude of 7.0 or higher have occurred most often since 1900 in years when the Earth’s rotation speed was slower.
In those years, there were also more earthquakes overall, in addition to more severe earthquakes across the globe.
If the current pattern continues, researchers Bendick and Bilham recently concluded that future generations should see more frequent and more intense earthquakes around the world.
