Quake Lifted Earth's Surface Around Globe:
The earthquake's shock waves ricocheted around the globe and lifted the earth's surface nearly an inch, a new study showed.
Dr. Aster said that even in Ecuador, the shock wave displaced the earth's surface more than two centimeters, or nearly an inch, but the movement was too slow to be perceptible to humans. The jolt was much sharper in Pallekele, Sri Lanka, and shook the ground over a range of nearly four inches, he said.Waves from the quake weakened as they bounced around the globe but were still discernible after making a complete loop. The seismogram from Tristan da Cunha, a group of British islands in the South Atlantic, shows the main wave arriving after a little more than an hour, then two smaller ones that circled the earth in two directions arriving after about 120 minutes and 230 minutes.
