The NASA scientist theorizes this shift. In his own wording, the earth
accelerated to shorten the day by one milionth of a second and the rotation
axis moved one inch. He acknowledges this is a theory as these changes are too
small to be detected by the GPS system.

Here's a bit of the article:

Richard Gross, a NASA geophysicist, theorised that a shift of mass toward the
Earth’s centre during Sunday’s quake had caused the planet to spin 3
microseconds or one milionth of a second faster and to tilt about an inch on
its axis.

When one huge tectonic plate beneath the Indian Ocean was forced below the edge
of another “it had the effect of making the Earth more compact and spin
faster,” Gross said.

He said changes predicted by his model are probably too minuscule to be
detected by a GPS network, but said the data may reveal a slight wobble.

“Earth’s continual motion is just used to changing. It does slow down and
change its rate of rotation. When these tiny variations accumulate, planetary
scientists must add a leap second to the end of a year, something that has not
been done for years,” Gross said.

Source : http://www.gisdevelopment.net/news/v...S:N_duehywjsrl

Now, this wouldn't have make a great news story. So by leaving the numbers out,
NBC made one out of it.

Jean Dufour
Montreal, Qc