Quake Changes Earth's Rotation, Moves Islands

kernel panic attack writes "This week's deadly Asian Quake and Tsunami may have been so powerful, that it changed the rate of Earth's rotation. In a Reuters article, a NASA geophysicist theorizes that the quake compacted the Earth enough to speed up the planet's rotation by 3 microseconds. A second article says the quake moved undersea tectonic plates by up to 98 feet, shifting islands near Sumatra out to sea an unknown distance. Also, a USGS team wants images from commercial satellite operators to help pinpoint coastline damage. Lastly, an interesting article from the Australian Spaceguard Survey about the need for a Tsunami warning system in the Indian Ocean. The author comments that tsunami warnings may not help much, as people often flock to the coastline to see the giant waves." The current estimated death toll is now nearly 70,000; Amazon and Google, among others, have added front-page links to simplify donating to the disaster relief effort.

a NASA geophysicist theorizes

[Anonymous Coward]

but it doesnt make it fact

3 microseconds per _what_?

[WillerZ]

Article is useless, and indeed meaningless without the _what_ filled in...

Phil

Over what time?

[GeekLife.com]

"Richard Gross, a geophysicist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, theorized that a shift of mass toward the Earth's center during the quake on Sunday caused the planet to spin 3 microseconds, or 3 millionths of a second, faster and to tilt about an inch on its axis."

3 millionths of a second faster...per year? Per day? Per second? It would seem that that would be critical information left out of this and all other articles I've seen mentioning this change.

Just the SCOPE

[Badgerman]

It's still hard to wrap my mind around the extent of the disaster.

It also is amazing just how much information we have at our fingertips from cell phones, cameras, the internet, and more. Had this happened twenty years ago, the sense of it would be different.

It's amazing seeing the global impact, and being aware of the global impact. The world is much smaller these days.

I am also heartened to see how the internet has given people information on how to help out. That, too, is different than what we would have faced twenty years ago. Let's hope it makes a difference.

Re:Interesting.

[n0mad6]

With the case of the moon, the Earth's rotation is slowed down enough such that on average, the day is lengthened by 15 microseconds every year. At the same time, the moon gets 38 mm further from the Earth over the same period. This is a result of the two bodies being tidally locked (i.e., having synchronized rotations such that one side of the moon is always facing the Earth).

Re:As was mentioned yesterday

[metlin]

Well, I'm writing this from Chennai/Madras which was hit quite badly (over 3000+ folks were killed from areas here and around).

The problem is that this region has never seen Tsunamis before, and most people were just curious to see what the hell was happening. That made it only worse - a lot of them were morning walkers who were wondering what's up with the sea.

If erudite urban folks are this naive, what can you expect off villagers? Actually, there is a story making the rounds of a guy from Singapore who called up his village and warned them about this, and they all moved to safety and nobody in the village was affected.

The problem is that, it is not enough if you had a warning system -- you would need to know what to do with it. It's not sufficient to warn people, you need to tell them where to go and what to do, too.

Re:Indian ocean isnt the only place one is needed

[stratjakt]

That wouldn't be a tidal wave, since it has nothing to do with tides.

I'm not merely being pedantic, I'm fed up with amateurish, downright sloppy "scientific" journalism.

And I've been hearing about this Canary Island thing for about a decade now, I guess given last weeks catastrophe, it's time for the media to dust it off and make a few bucks sowing fear.

Re:Rotation

[BridgeBum]

We already do. [navy.mil] The first one was in 1972.

Donations

[supersmike]

I'll donate this evening

The U.S. will donate $35 million. Let's see...

$35000000 - amount committed to help victims
100000 - conservative death toll
= $350 - spent to aid each victim

$147000000,000 - spent [costofwar.com] on war in Iraq
17000 - rough number of Iraqis killed
= $8,647,058 - spent to kill each Iraqi

I'm ashamed to be an American. Call me a troll if you want, but these numbers are sickening.

Re:Rotation

[Kunnis]

Well it was enough to move a tetonic plate 80 feet, that means an entire part of the earth's crust shifted 80 feet. If you think about basic physics, for every action there is an equal reaction. We're on a spinning ball, part of the surface of the ball shifts to one side. Suddenly the rate at which the ball is spinning has changed. Makes sense to me to have an effect on the length of a day

Sensationalist Title

[kryzx]

Come on now, is it really good journalism to put the title "Quake Changes Earth's Rotation, Moves Islands" on this, because some dork theorizes that the quake may have accelerated the Earth's rotation, but the change would be too small to measure? Please.

And speaking of poor journalism, has anyone else noticed that Fox News has the epicenter of the quake totally wrong? They put it down near the bottom of Sumatra. I saw this on the first day and discounted it as early guesswork, but then I just saw it again last night (12/28), same graphic. I guess they just don't care.

Re:Donations

[saider]

The U.S. will donate $35 million. Let's see...

$35000000 - amount committed to help victims
100000 - conservative death toll
= $350 - spent to aid each victim

$147000000,000 - spent on war in Iraq
17000 - rough number of Iraqis killed
= $8,647,058 - spent to kill each Iraqi

I'm ashamed to be an American. Call me a troll if you want, but these numbers are sickening.


$147,000,000,000 - spent on war in Iraq
25,000,000 - number of people freed from dictator
= $5880 - spent to free an individual

I'm proud to be an American. Call me a troll if you want, but at least I know my country _did_ something.

Re:How many separate waves were there?

[cyd]

If you think about it, two to three tsunamis in quick succession (in lessening degrees for each one) might not be out of the question... When the first tsunami is created, it leaves a vacuum behind it. The water being pushed out leaves a "hole" behind it, that needs to be filled... And would likely cause a backsplash effect. The second (and/or third) wouldn't be as drastic as the first, but could still do some hefty damage.

Ripples in a pond. Big ripple, big pond.

Re:Donations

[rednip]

I'm ashamed to be an American.

As you should be, you are clearly distorting the facts, and misusing a tradegy for you own purposes in a manner that is worthy of a Bush staffer. $35 million dollars is just in discressionary funds, Congress will meet shorty to approve more money from our Federal government, and of course this doesn't include private charity.

I dislike bush more than most, but you 'sir' are living proof that being 'left' doesn't make you 'right'.

Re:Apple Too

[silence535]

Modifying their front page to link to donation sites does not cost them a single penny.

Why are the big companies not offering financial aid? Amazon made record braking money with the X-mas business and Apple reportedly had a good year. BP for example had almost four billion (!) dollars profit (!) last quarter.

Would it hurt to spend a couple of bucks for aid?

But oh wait, this would reduce the sacred shareholder value.

Under certain viewpoints capitalizm sucks.

-silence

Re:Donations

[JInterest]

I'm ashamed to be an American. Call me a troll if you want, but these numbers are sickening.

I'm ashamed that you are an American too. Stop your pointless off-topic trolling. It is truly sickening.

Re:Donations

[Rathian]

What you're leaving out is the detail:
The U.S. GOVERNMENT will donate $35 million.

It's very likely more will be donated as time goes on. Already they have increased this from the initial $15M pledged on the day of the disaster. The size and scope of this is still coming in. One of the things the U.S. Government has already done was to send three P3 Orions to better survey and asses the damage so we'll know what is needed and how much.

Also, that is completely ignoring/not counting donations from the private sector (i.e. You, me, companies) and food donations. I would guess that also doesn't count costs to the U.S. Government for the costs of the manpower we are sending to that area to aid relief efforts.

Me, I'm proud to be an American. In spite of what others may say, our nation is full of compassionate and caring people.

Re:As was mentioned yesterday

[Ced_Ex]

I read that most people were actually confused when they saw the ocean receding from the beach. They never made the connection between the extremely low tide and the forth coming tsunami.

The people just stood around on the beach watching the water leave the beach, only to see it return as a huge wave.

It's so sad to see such devestation. Please people, go and donate at UNICEF [unicef.ca] it's the least you can do. I mean, if you saw someone fall and break a leg, would you not stop to help? Since we can't go over to help them, send money.

Amazon's donation page

[danwarne]

Doesn't Amazon take the biggest cut of any online payments processor for donations? I'd be personally hesitant to donate through Amazon after reading what shareware authors have had to say about them. Amazon should put its money where its mouth is and provide the payment processing for the tsunami relief commission-free.

Re:Donations

[Ubergrendle]

I would suggest that many Americans would benefit from a more thorough study of history. Napoleon offers a good example -- you can't free people who don't want to be free, or who don't consider themselves captive to begin with.

It will take a decade to determine whether Iraqis were better off with Saddam vs the US 'liberation' effort. I'm cynically guesing the result will be a wash...

Re:Rotation

[nwbvt]

Thing is that stuff like this is really not out of the ordinary. This was the largest quake in 40 years, that means a larger one happened 40 years ago. And there were 3 larger ones in the past 100 years. Now for a human being once in every 40 years is rare, but for the planet that is pretty routine. We are all brought up to believe that the Earth is this fragile thing in which the slightest alteration screws up the balance of nature, but that really is not the case. It is a constantly changing giant rock spinning around in space.

Now that doesn't mean that the quake can't have changes just because larger recent quakes didn't do anything. In fact we know that massive changes in the Earth have happened before in the more distant past, and I seriously doubt they were from SUVs polluting too much, so it is perfectly possible that there is something special about this quake (other than just its magnitude) that will cause major changes.

Re:Donations

[nwbvt]

You are not very good with numbers, are you?

"$35000000 - amount committed to help victims
100000 - conservative death toll
= $350 - spent to aid each victim"

So all the money is going to aide the dead victims?

" $8,647,058 - spent to kill each Iraqi"

You do realize the purpose of war is not to kill as many people as we can.

So, you're saying...

[Rufus88]

...that you would have preferred that 420,000,000 Iraqis were killed, to bring the cost per kill down to a commensurate $350 level? I guess you'd really be complaining if only one Iraqi died in the whole war. After all, we'd have spent $147 Billion to kill that one Iraqi, right?

Re:Donations

[JJahn]

Freed from a dictator, and thrown into a brutal warzone with no safety, no infrastructure (water, sewer, power) worth speaking of, etc. We did more to destroy Iraq than to help it. Perhaps with a thorough plan, and some more international help, we could have removed Saddam without decimating the country.

Well spotted.

[jotaeleemeese]

THe UK is donating 15 million dollars (after much pressure of the media and the general public).

This is the amount that football teams have paid for some top players in recent years:

Manchester United for Wayne Rooney: 54 million US$.
Manchester United for Rio Ferdinand: 58 million US$.
Real Madrid for David Beckham: 41 million US$.

Something is horribly wrong with this.

Re:Donations

[saider]

Remember that .02% of GDP is what the government provides. This does not include all the money that individuals and private organizations will contribute.

Why does everyone expect the government to do everything? They are very inefficient, especially when it comes to distributing money. If you don't like how much money your government is giving, then start your own fundraising campaing. I have - I tell everyone I talk to about it to give to the Red Cross. It takes about 5 minutes and if only 1 in 10 people in this country gave $10, you are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars.

Spread the word and _do_ something. Don't just sit there and complain.

Yes, you are a troll.

[BurntHombre]

And how much money have you donated?

Re:It's all about angular momentum

[Kjella]

or close enough to zero that it's discountable.

Yes, it is neglectable. AFAIK one of the few works of man that have changed the angular momentum to some degree are the great dams, e.g. the Hoover dam. Keeping all that water at an higher altitude matters a lot more than a few skyscrapers.

Of course, that too pales in comparison to an earthquake, which moves the tectonic plates themselves. Falling or raising plates moves thousands of meters of rock up and down, creating mountains and oceans. Anything man has built is neglectable compared to that.

Kjella

Re:Well spotted.

[klang]

yeah, you are right! David Beckham is almost 24% cheaper than Wayne Rooney! What is the world comming to?

Talk about a moronic post

[ThinWhiteDuke]

God!

Your post made me mad, really. I've had to make a serious effort to remind myself that I should not fall to easy generalizations. No, most Americans are not like you. Most Americans are actually decent and caring people.

Most Americans just happen to live in the same country as you. I don't even think that the proportion of selfish bastards is higher in the US than in other countries. It's just that, for some reason, selfish bastards are more vocal in the US than elsewhere.

It's OK now, the burst of anger has receded. My faith and respect in the American people is unharmed. I'm even willing to consider that you didn't really think before posting and that you don't really mean that. But do you realize how hard you make it not to hate the US? Do you realize that you're a liability to your country?

Re:Let's not make fun..

[Atzanteol]

Actually, the Red Cross has been asking for cash more than goods. It's quicker and easier to ship money (done electronicaly) and they can buy the goods closer to the catastrophe. It costs them money to ship out clothing et al, and it's slower.

Re:Let's not make fun..

[tntguy]

If you do want to help, donate clothing/water purifiers like Brita more than cash. They atleast go the victims directly.

DO NOT DO THIS!!! Donate cash. Legitimate organizations can spend your money far better than you can. They'll have (access to) locals who will know what's needed. The $10 you spend on a filtered water pitcher (which won't help with bacteria) could go toward a real purifier that several people could use.

Things are cheaper over there, and they'll usually negotiate deals on bulk purchases anyway. Plus, rather than a few bits in a bank's computer, you've caused them to deal with physical items...they have enough logistical problems.

Now, if you (general "you", not freedom_india specifically) are local to the area, quit reading Slashdot and start helping!

Re:Let's not make fun..

[Eric S. Smith]

A Brita bought here is cheaper than a water purifier bought in Madras

...and will do no good. Brita filters, as anyone who's read the label knows, are only good for water that is already safe to drink.

Which goes to the point under discussion: send money to those who know what to do with it.

Re:Atlantic Ocean -vs- Pacific Ocean

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortuantely most people just don't look at the two oceans, especially their underwater attributes.

Both the Pacific and Indian Oceans have very small if non existant shelves. There is simply deep ocean and then land rising up very quickly.

The Atlantic Ocean has a large shelf that protrudes well out to sea on the east coast of the US. This can significantly reduce the effects of Tsunamis (which are the displacemnt of water). Think of it this way, the Tsunami will "break" hundreds of miles out to sea and then flow in to the east coast of the US.

This may mean extremely high tides and localized flooding, but very unlikely to create the situations seen commonly in Japan and this week in SE Asia.

Go do some *BASIC* research and get back to us, eh?

Re:Apple Too

[EinarH]

With the danger of sounding like a depreciative bitch I'm willing to play the devils advocate and say that "this whole donate privatly a few bucks on some page" is, allthough good, as significant as a mouse peeing in the ocean to rasie the level.

Private donatins and charity and campaigns like this are the kind of feel-good actions that do very little overall. They are usualy short-term campaigns tha collect a few millions than fade into obscurity within a week and bring little long term benefit.
Fast forward a week or two. Amazon may have collected $5-10 million then everyone forgets about the whole deal. It's a perfect setup. Those that give a few bucks get the feeling that they contributed "enough", some people got some help, politicans can take the populistic "sure we are helping through private aid", the private NGOs get they paycheck and got the chance to help _some_ and off couse promote their agenda. And everyone in the western world is happy.

So yes I think private charity like this is insignificant comapred to large initiatives, long term work and state based aid.

So yes I do think Americans are stingy, together with the rest of the rich world. I know because I'm a stingy person myself on this area*. But then again I'm honest enough to admit it.

*For the record I gave less than $100 to the Red Cross yesterday. Should/Could have given much more.

Re:Apple Too

[nathanh]

*For the record I gave less than $100 to the Red Cross yesterday. Should/Could have given much more.

If every American gave as much as you did then you'd have collectively raised $30 billion for the relief effort. The UN is estimating they'll only need $5 billion in total.

The problem isn't with you, so don't feel guilty. The problem is with the billions of people worldwide who will donate nothing.

At the risk of sounding socialist (I'm sure I just caused a few Americans to faint from shock) this is why we have mandatory taxes and government aid. Because left to ourselves, we're all a bunch of selfish pricks.

Yourself excluded, of course ;-)

Re:Rotation

[nwbvt]

Discussing the geological ramifications of a large earthquake is belittling the tragedy it caused? What would you do, call it an Act of God and never speak of it again?

And I hardly see anything in that post that justifies SUVs in there, in fact the only mention of SUVs was a claim that they did not cause the major changes in the Earth's climate millions of years ago. If thats what you call a justification, you have serious problems.

Would you save the lives of 5,000 people for $20?

[Futurepower(R)]

Using Skype.com software, and a broadband connection, it would have been possible for a single person in the U.S., using SkypeOut, to call telephones in Thailand for an hour for just a few U.S. dollars. Would you save the lives of 5,000 people if it cost only $20 and an hour of your time? Of course!!!!

It is VERY easy to find the phone numbers of hotels and newspapers in Thailand, for example, using Google. Just tell everyone that, if they see the water receding, they have just a few minutes to get to safety.

Re:Rotation

[b!arg]

You are so right. The Earth is far from fragile. I've always had problems with people trying to "Save the Earth." What they are trying to do is Save the Humans. The Earth will be around LOOOONG after we are, but it will probably not be inhabitable by humans as we are today. Since our brief view of Earth during our lifetime makes us see it as a static thing (i.e. it is always rainy in Seattle and Northern Africa will always be a desert), it is incredibly dynamic. This has been one of the scariest things to me (but only during moments of random paranoia). Civilization as we know it today relies on the Earth being a static entity.

Re:Let's not make fun..

[valmont]

All statistics you quote are government-donated funds. They do not take into account donations made from the private sector, companies and individuals. If you take those into account, America dwarfs everyone and leaves France far behind. Some countries tax their citizens more than others. Having grown-up in France, i know for a fact from both my parents that companies and individuals get taxed into oblivion.

Having built my professional life in America, I know I can easily donate to relief organizations without straining my budget too much, and most of the time, write it off on my U.S. taxes, which means money that would otherwise go to the U.S. government now goes to Red Cross, with Uncle Sam's benediction.

In the end, what matters is how much money relief organizations get, and which countries it's coming from. Let's see who's ahead in terms of income percentage.

I gave $250 to redcross via amazon as soon as it went up.

We're not martyrs. We're setting the record straight. And we're here to help.

Salon is here to slander and make sensationalistic headlines. That's what sells. Use grains of salt and don't take everything you read at face value, and most certainly not anything I write. Do your own research.

GODDAMMIT

[YrWrstNtmr]

This is not an international dick-waving contest to see who can 'contribute' the most. How about we just help them, OK?

Re:Apple Too

[Anonymous Coward]

With taxes you have no choice but to "donate". I cannot believe people bitch about Americans not donating enough or being stingy. What a load of shit. They donate with their taxes AND donate freely because they choose to.

The world bitches about Americans getting involved in everything, yet when the world needs help and it arrives from Americans they bitch about them not doing enough.

The U.S. could have done what most other countries did when the twin towers fell and donated absolutely nothing. Even if American tax dollars aren't pumped into this tragedy, their private donations will equate to more than most countries will give.

Amazon Donation...

[uptownguy]

I don't have a credit card but I'm sitting on a $25 Amazon.com gift certificate that someone gave me. I was hoping to be able to use THAT to make a $25 donation to the American Red Cross (Or, frankly, ANY organization providing relief!) through Amazon.com. After some searching I can't find any way to do it...

So I'm going to use Slashdot to see if I can do the next best thing: I'm willing to give my validation code for a $25 Amazon.com gift certificate to anyone who is willing to MAKE a $25 donation. Seriously. No stings attached here and I suppose, ultimately, that I'll never have any verification that it worked but cynicism is worse than inaction. I'm just a guy with bad credit who still wants to find a way to help.

If you are willing to make that donation, just send me an email (to my email address listed above) and I'll send you the code to the Amazon.com gift certificate -- it is good through 17-Nov-2005.

Re:Stingy Americans? Here's One...

[nathanh]

When you are attacked, you defend. When attacked by someone who is clearly an idiot, facts and numbers sometime help.

An anonymous coward claiming to have a half-million dollar income is now a fact? Get real! I think the odds are rather good that was simply an anonymous liar.

I provided the facts and figures earlier. The US donates less per person than France, and significantly less in total than just the Scandanavian countries.

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it. Idiot, indeed. You just don't like hearing the truth.

Re:Over what time?

[Physics Dude]

You know what one rotation of the earth is called, right? One of those is 3 microseconds faster.

Which would be great if the article had actually said that the 3 milliseconds was per rotation (which it didn't).

Re:Apple Too

[kaustik]

I bet any one of the people receiving any sort of benefit from this (food, shelter, medical attention) would beg to differ.

Re:Apple Too

[rcamera]

as of now, amazon claims to have collected $2,120,581.09. the us federal government pledged $35 million [bloomberg.com] while the entire eu pledged $4 million [bergen.com]. overall, nations pledged "at least $102 million" (see first link). amazon alone has collected over 50% of the eu's pledge and 2% of total aid pledged by all nations. i wonder what the red cross has collected (without amazon), as well as unicef, cidi, etc. i imagine that compared to the $102 million, private collections are NOT insignificant.

if you think that immediate response is insignificant compared to long term initiatives, then you are insane. while long term initiatives are important, people eating TODAY is more important than any long term aid. if you disagree, i challenge you to live out of a destroyed mud hut, drink dirty water and eat only what you find on the side of the road knowing that in a few weeks/months/years things may be better. see how much consilation that is...

Re:Sensationalist Title

[J. Random Luser]

News: Nicobar Islands moved out to sea an unknown distance...
More news: Scientist postulates Earth's rotation changed...
More predictable news: Slashdot feeding frenzy...

Come on people. The Earth is a flexible sphere. Neither its mass nor volume were changed by this quake. There was a well observed "lurch" at the surface caused by crustal movement, but rest assured the elasticity of the crustal-core bond will make up over the next several days for any microseconds lost/gained at the instant.

Re:Let's not make fun..

[EnronHaliburton2004]

If you do want to help, donate clothing/water purifiers like Brita more than cash. They atleast go the victims directly.

Your post is an excellent example of why you should donate cash to organizations who have a good idea what the immediate needs are, rather then donate goods when you don't understand what the problem is.

People have immediate needs for food, medicine and clean drinking drinking water. Clothing comes afterwards. Brita filters are useless against raw sewage, bad chemicals from the flooded factories, and salt water from the ocean.

Clothing may be helpful, but it is more efficient for the clothing to be shipped from the unaffected areas in Asia, where the vast majority of clothing is manufactured anyways.

Even if some of the money is stolen due to corruption, it's better then shipping a ton of plastic water filters to people who can't use them.

Front Page Link?

[TrevorB]

Amazon and Google, among others, have added front-page links to simplify donating to the disaster relief effort.

Perhaps Slashdot could do the same? After all, 80,000 dead and counting definately counds as "Stuff that matters."

Tourists: Help out!

[SEWilco]

the quake moved undersea tectonic plates by up to 98 feet, shifting islands near Sumatra out to sea an unknown distance.

OK, so all you tourists in the area with GPS units should take some readings so rescue workers can make adjustments. Post them in the Discuss page on Wikipedia for the earthquake.

Re:Stingy Americans? Here's One...

[JabberWokky]

There is a simple difference. The United States is not a socialist country, and indeed, most of the population dislikes socialism. Thus there are large private organizations (like the American Red Cross) and both individual and corporate donations to any disaster that far exceed what the government can do.

That is the preferred way for the United States. It's different than how some other countries handle it, but the numbers, when compared on a "total assistance" basis, rather than being skewed, are certainly favorable to the United States.

Consider this - many people in the United States want *less* government support of even domestic disasters. The private sector handles such events quite capably, with both sufficient funds and resources.

It is not that "US citizens are nicer than the US government" - that distinction is not something that the United States is based on. The citizens *are* the government... our founding documents dictate that the government is "of the people, by the people and for the people". Many citizens prefer that the government take an absolute minimum in taxes and allow the individual to decide how to spend their individual income. Thus, the US government *cannot* match the EU's disaster aid - they aren't taking in the income to be able to. I would guess (and would appreciate somebody checking this) that the EU has a larger available budget to give aid with than the US federal government. The population of the US, however, has more money and gives that in aid.

--
Evan

Re:Let's not make fun..

[Anonymous Coward]

And, btw, the current numbers for ODA funding are:

Australia - $1.2 Billion
France - $7.3 Billion
US - $16.2 Billion (a 23% increase over last year under the evil Bushilter!)

Australia: $1.2bn
p/capita: ~$60
%GDP(PPP): 0.2%

France: $7.3bn
p/capita: ~$120
%GDP(PPP): 0.4%

USA: $16.2bn
p/capita: ~$60
%GDP(PPP): 0.15%

Re:Let's not make fun..

[Anonymous Coward]

Australia's $1.2B and Americas $16.2B when worked out based on population is roughly the same per person (although australia is better).

US $16.2B / 293M = ~$55 per head
AU $1.2B / 19.9M = ~$60 per head

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geo s/ us.html
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factb ook/geos/ as.html