The deadly Asian earthquake may have permanently accelerated the Earth’s rotation, shortening days by a fraction of a second and caused the planet to wobble on its axis, U.S. scientists said Tuesday.
Richard Gross, a geophysicist with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, theorized that a shift of mass toward the Earth’s center during the quake Sunday caused the planet to spin 3 microseconds, or millionths of a second, faster and to tilt about an inch on its axis.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/science/12/29/quake.wobble.reut/index.html