( CNN ) -- The magnitude-8.8 earthquake that rocked the west coast of Chile last month was violent enough to move the city of Concepcion at least 10 feet to the west and the capital , Santiago , about 11 inches to the west-southwest , researchers said . The quake also shifted other parts of South America , as far apart as the Falkland Islands and Fortaleza , Brazil . The results were reached via global positioning satellite measurements taken before and after the February 27 quake by teams from The Ohio State University , the University of Hawaii , the University of Memphis and the California Institute of Technology , as well as agencies across South America . NASA scientists have also credited the quake with shifting the Earth 's axis enough to create shorter days . The change is negligible , but still worth noting : Each day should be 1.26 microseconds shorter , according to preliminary calculations . A microsecond is one-millionth of a second . A large quake -- like the one that hit Chile 's Maule region -- shifts massive amounts of rock and alters the distribution of mass on the planet . When that distribution changes , it changes the rate at which the planet rotates . And the rotation rate determines the length of a day . `` Any worldly event that involves the movement of mass affects the Earth 's rotation , '' Benjamin Fong Chao , of NASA 's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt , Maryland , said while explaining the phenomenon in 2005 . Despite the tragedy of the earthquake , which killed hundreds of Chileans , scientists see opportunities to gain valuable information in the aftermath . `` The Maule earthquake will arguably become one of the , if not the most important , great earthquakes yet studied , '' said Ben Brooks of the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology at the University of Hawaii . `` We now have modern , precise instruments to evaluate this event . ''
Earthquake also shifted other parts of South America . Scientists have credited the quake with shifting the Earth 's axis . This shift in Earth's axis caused a change in how it spins, which is why we see earthquakes and volcanic eruptions on our planet today.