Apparently living in Canada ensures I weigh less because Canada has less gravity (and I thought I was naturally thin). Different parts of the world have endure different levels of gravitational pull, some even witness gravity waves. Neat stuff!
A German-American team has figured out why Canada has less gravity and it has something to do with the Ice Age. The results of the observations can be applied to more than the average weight of a Canadian.
Ultimately, scientists hope to use such data to learn how continents form and evolve over time. “With this information, people could infer better whether the North America plate is actually predominantly stable,” says C K Shum, an expert on the Earth’s gravity at Ohio State University in Columbus, US, who was not a part of this study.
Using this same set of data, researchers have also found that there were two ice domes in the ice sheet on either side of Hudson Bay, given the features in the gravity field that have been left behind. The way the thickness of any ice cover changes at different periods could be used by climate modellers to understand past climate change.