M3.4 - 3km SSW of Volcano, Hawaii (click here)
April 8, 2016
By Shannon Hall
NASA scientists claim climate change is shifting the Earth’s poles. Photo by NASA/JPL-Caltech
The north pole is on the run. (click here) Although it can drift as much as 10 meters across a century, sometimes returning to near its origin, it has recently taken a sharp turn to the east. Climate change is the likely culprit, yet scientists are debating how much melting ice or changing rain patterns affect the pole’s wanderlust.
The geographical poles—the north and south tips of the axis that the Earth spins around—wobble over time due to small variations in the sun’s and moon’s pulls, and potentially to motion in Earth’s core and mantle. But changes on the planet’s surface can alter the poles, too. They wobble with every season as the distribution of snow and rain change, and over long stretches as well.
Roughly 10,000 years ago, for example, Earth woke up from a deep freeze and the massive ice sheets sitting atop what is now Canada melted. As ice mass fled, and the depressed crust rebounded, the distribution of the planet’s mass changed and the north pole started to drift west. This pattern can be clearly seen in data from 1899 onward. But a recent zigzag in the north pole’s path (and the opposite movement in the south pole) suggests a new change is afoot....
The quakes have been occurring at the North Pole the last few years.
Ice is classified as a rock. The rocks are gone. There is plate movement.
2015-07-15 08:13:07 (UTC)
M3.1 - 2km NNE of North Pole, Alaska (click here)
The quakes have been occurring at the North Pole the last few years.
Ice is classified as a rock. The rocks are gone. There is plate movement.
2015-07-15 08:13:07 (UTC)
M3.1 - 2km NNE of North Pole, Alaska (click here)
