Published2 hours ago
The power of the magnitude 7.5 quake in Japan can be seen in just how much the ground moved.
It rose up by more than 4m (13ft) in places and moved sideways by over a metre.
Earthquake-prone Japan is hugely advanced in monitoring what happens when the ground shakes. That’s why it can make such precise measurements.
There’s a network of GPS stations dotted at strategic points right across the country. When an earthquake strikes, scientists can tell exactly how much each one has moved, showing how the landscape has buckled and shifted.
This system shows that the land moved as much as 130cm to the west after the earthquake on Monday.
Meanwhile, scientists have also been keeping an eye on Japan from space, comparing satellite images taken before and after the earthquake.
On its latest pass, the ALOS-2 spacecraft reported that the distance between itself and the ground had shortened as the Earth’s surface had risen up under the force of the tremor.
The ground moved the most on the western side of the Noto peninsula. The ocean floor shifted off the coast there, generating tsunami waves of about 80cm in height.
Fortuitously, the uplift may actually have lessened the impact of the waves when they arrived at the shoreline.
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