Chile earthquake moves South America 10 feet

Sunday I was in the Deutsches Museum in Munich, which has halls and halls full of scientific instruments and explanations, some more interesting than others.  I liked the historical instruments the most, such as the Magdeburg spheres.  There was one hall dedicated to geodesy, measuring the size and shape of the earth, and the surveying of its surface, from the use of chains and compasses to total stations to gps.

The Berkeley Seismo blog has a nice entry on the movement in South American due to the Chile earthquake. Concepción, near the epicenter, moved over 10 feet!  This is because earthquakes are caused by displacement on a fault.

I plan to discuss the westerly motion and its relation to the balloon diagram of the fault plane solution in a later post.

Figure from the Berkeley Seismo blog