COMMENT & REPLY - Comment on “Could the Mw = 9.3 Sumatra Earthquake Trigger a Geomagnetic Jerk?”

We thank M. Dumberry for providing the opportunity to discuss further the article [Florindo et al., 2005] in which we suggested that the Sumatra earthquake could have triggered a geomagnetic jerk. Dumberry is against our hypothesis for different reasons: (1) The displacement pattern produced by this earthquake is incompatible with the core-mantle boundary (CMB) deformations required for a torsional oscillation; (2) most of the deformations occurred locally, producing an actual mass displacement that has not involved the entire Earth; and (3) no abrupt change in the length of day (LOD) has been observed after this event. Although we agree with some of the considerations proposed by Dumberry, we think that these do not rule out the possibility that a jerk has been triggered by the Sumatra earthquake or that in the future, other earthquakes could induce a change in the flow pattern near the CMB leading to a geomagnetic jerk. On the contrary, we retain that this hypothesis is plausible, although it is more correct to talk about the existence of a possible link between geomagnetic jerks and earthquakes where the earthquake magnitude is not the only discriminating parameter