The CS Monitor reported on April 28, 2013, that an investigation has revealed that earthquakes in the past million years in Chile have permanently deformed the Earth.
The research that spanned over a century has suggested the Earth's crust elastically spring back causing a rebound after quakes.
This may take some time which may be over the course of months to some decades to get back to initial state.
This is proved by well-documented satellite-based GPS systems that monitor Earth's movements of the devastating 1906 San Francisco temblor which destructed more than 80 percent of the city.
However Richard Allmendinger, structural geologist of Cornell University with his colleagues found that earthquakes of magnitude 7 or greater have apparently caused the Earth's crust to crack permanently in northern Chile.
Allmendinger said that it is a place like the Atacama Desert, where these cracks can be observed.
The desert is the driest place on Earth with earthquakes going back a million years. He observed that surface processes erase deformations within days or weeks of their formation in other places which is not the case in Atacama.
Allmendinger added that these formations are preserved for millions of years in Atacama and they believe that the results would be applicable to other areas.
via Examiner National Edition Gadgets & Tech Channel Articles http://www.examiner.com/article/earth-permanently-deformed-by-earthquakes-chile?cid=roadrunner