Additional proof of the punch packed by the Indian Ocean tsunami emerged on Thursday, as outlined in this report from UPI:

US scientists say they’ve determined Earth’s gravity changed as a result of the giant 2004 Sumatran earthquake.

The discovery marked the first time scientists have used satellite data to detect changes in the Earth’s surface caused by a massive earthquake. It signifies a new use for data from NASA satellites and offers a possible new approach to understanding how earthquakes work.

The 9.1-magnitude, December 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake in the Indian Ocean produced a tsunami that killed approximately 230,000 people, while displacing more than a million others.

The event followed the slipping of two continental plates under the sea floor that raised ocean bed in the region by several feet for thousands of square miles.

“The earthquake changed the gravity in that part of the world in two ways that we were able to detect,” said Shin-Chan Han, a research scientist at Ohio State University.

He and colleagues determined the quake triggered the massive uplift of the sea floor, changing the geometry of the region and altering previous global positioning satellite measurements of the area. And the density of the rock beneath the sea floor shifted, producing detectable gravity changes.