I heard from one of my profs recently, that the earthquake on Dec 26th in the SE Asia caused the circumference of the earth to become smaller. Because the oceanic plate subducted under the continental one, this caused the actualy circumference of the earth to decrease, which as caused the rotation of the earth to now spin 3 nano-seconds faster than previously. Does anyone else have any proof or articles on this. I thought it was really interesting!
http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=39758 This is another thread on the question entitled "Slowing of Earth's rotation??".
It's three microseconds, not nano seconds, and it's supposed to speed up the Earth's rotation, not slow it. That's at the moment of the quake. All during the several centuries leading up to the quake the Earth's rotation is gradually slowing by those three microseconds. On average the effect is zero.
