Japan's coastline may have shifted by as much as 4m to the east following Friday's earthquake.
Data from the country's Geonet network of about 1200 GPS monitoring stations suggest a large displacement following the massive quake, the BBC reports.
Dr Roger Musson from the British Geological Survey told BBC News the movement observed following the quake was "in line with what you get when you have an earthquake this big".
The quake probably shifted Earth on its axis by about 16.5cm and caused the planet to rotate somewhat faster, shortening the length of the day by about 1.8 millionths of a second.
