Earthquake Scale Comparison

The moment magnitude scale was introduced in 1979 as a successor to the richter scale.

Earthquake scale comparison. Use this online richter scale comparison calculator to find the difference of two earthquake magnitudes and measure which how bigger is a magnitude than the other. The richter magnitude scale measures the amount of energy released at the earthquake s epicenter. The mercalli scale is linear and the richter scale is logarithmic.

A magnitude 5 earthquake is ten times as. Much like the mercalli scale the jma scheme quantifies how much ground surface shaking takes place at measurement sites distributed throughout an affected area. Because of various shortcomings of the m l scale most.

This was later revised and renamed the local magnitude scale denoted as ml or m l. The scale can go up to as high as 9 5 this was the largest ever recorded in. While the mercalli scale describes the intensity of an earthquake based on its observed effects the richter scale describes the earthquake s magnitude by measuring the seismic waves that cause the earthquake.

A measurement scale used to measure the earthquake magnitude is the richter scale which was developed by the seismologists charles francis richter and beno gutenberg. Earthquake size as measured by the richter scale is a well known but not well understood concept. This works because the energy scales with 3 2 of magnitude for reasons that don t matter final example.

The two scales have different applications and measurement techniques. Comparing the magnitude 9 0 earthquake in japan with the magnitude 6 3 quake that struck. The idea of a logarithmic earthquake magnitude scale was first developed by charles richter in the 1930 s for measuring the size of earthquakes occurring in southern california using relatively high frequency data from nearby seismograph stations.

The richter scale also called the richter magnitude scale or richter s magnitude scale is a measure of the strength of earthquakes developed by charles f. The types and nature of these waves are described in the section seismic waves because the size of earthquakes varies enormously it is necessary for purposes of comparison to compress the range of wave amplitudes. Richter and presented in his landmark 1935 paper where he called it the magnitude scale.