Quake shifted islands: Scientist

Quake shifted islands: Scientist

Reuters,
Los Angeles, California

The massive earthquake that devastated parts of Asia permanently
moved the tectonic plates beneath the Indian Ocean as much as 30
meters, slightly shifting islands near Sumatra an unknown
distance, U.S. scientists said on Tuesday.

A tsunami spawned by the 9.0-magnitude quake off the northern
tip of Sumatra killed an estimated 60,000 on Sunday in Indonesia,
Thailand, India, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and East Africa.

Satellite images showed that the movement of undersea plates
off the northern tip of Sumatra moved the Nicobar Islands and
Simeulue Island out to sea by an unknown distance, U.S.
Geological Survey geophysicist Ken Hudnut said.

Although the data showed that plates more than 20 km beneath
the ocean's surface moved dramatically, scientists will have to
use handheld satellite positioning systems at the sites to learn
precisely how much the land masses on the surface shifted, Hudnut
said.

The USGS team in Pasadena, California, also was studying more
detailed satellite images on Tuesday to determine if the scraping
of one plate over another plowed up enough debris on the ocean
floor to block the port of Banda Aceh in Sumatra where
international aid was headed.

Large earthquakes in the last decade in Kobe, Japan, and
Golcuk, Turkey, deformed the coastlines and rendered their ports
inoperable after the crises, Hudnut said.

The scientists have asked for cooperation from operators of
commercial satellites that can provide high-resolution images to
show the extent of damage to coastlines, he said.