4 ms·

I did not quite understand "3.981 times stronger (energy release)", but god bless everyone.

Swizec 11y ago
The Richter scale is exponential. According to chrisra a 7.8 earthquake release almost 4x the energy of a 7.4 quake. I didn't run the numbers, but it seems plausible the difference would be that big. According to Wikipedia[1] a 7.5 quake releases 11 petajoules of energy, while a 7.8 quake release 32 petajoules. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_magnitude_scale#Examples http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_magnitude_scale#Example...
- nixy 11y ago
  This is something that's always bothered me. The Richter scale is not, for normal people like myself, a good earthquake magnitude indicator. I always have trouble grasping that 7.5 and 7.8 are so far apart in terms of severity since my mind is set to find a .3 difference negligible. I would like to have a metric measurement of earthquakes that would allow me to more quickly understand the scale and size of a quake. Edit: The difference between a 8.6 one and a 8.7 one is huge. The difference is as big as the difference between 0.0 and 8.35, in megatons at least.
  - nabaraz 11y ago
    Using Charles Richter's formula Magnitude of Earthquake M = log I / S (where I is the intensity of the earthquake taken 100km from epicenter, S is the intensity of a standard earthquake) First earthquake 7.8 = log I1 / S Second earthquake 7.1 = log I2 / S If we solve this for I1/I2, we get 10 ^ 1.10 ~ 12.5 > The intensity of first earthquake was 12.5 times as intense as the later earthquake.
  - NZ_Matt 11y ago
    The richter scale in general is not a good indicator of the destructiveness of an earthquake. You need to consider the location of the epicenter and the depth of the quake before coming to any sort of conclusion. I experienced this first hand here in Christchurch, NZ. We had a 7.1M quake and then a 6.3M aftershock 6 months later. Despite being almost an entire magnitude smaller the 6.3M aftershock was 10x more destructive. This was primarily because the epicenter of the 6.3M quake was 40km closer to the city and some unusually high verticle accelerations caused by the strike slip motion of the fault and the local geography. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Canterbury_earthquake http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Canterbury_earthquake http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Christchurch_earthquake http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Christchurch_earthquake The Mercalli Intensity Scale was developed to give a better indicator of the actual effect to people on the ground. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercalli_intensity_scale http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercalli_intensity_scale
th0br0 11y ago
The Richter scale is logarithmic and therefore, a doubling of values is not equivalent to a doubling of force.

The Richter scale is exponential. According to chrisra a 7.8 earthquake release almost 4x the energy of a 7.4 quake. I didn't run the numbers, but it seems plausible the difference would be that big. According to Wikipedia[1] a 7.5 quake releases 11 petajoules of energy, while a 7.8 quake release 32 petajoules. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_magnitude_scale#Examples http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_magnitude_scale#Example...

nixy 11y ago
This is something that's always bothered me. The Richter scale is not, for normal people like myself, a good earthquake magnitude indicator. I always have trouble grasping that 7.5 and 7.8 are so far apart in terms of severity since my mind is set to find a .3 difference negligible. I would like to have a metric measurement of earthquakes that would allow me to more quickly understand the scale and size of a quake. Edit: The difference between a 8.6 one and a 8.7 one is huge. The difference is as big as the difference between 0.0 and 8.35, in megatons at least.
- nabaraz 11y ago
  Using Charles Richter's formula Magnitude of Earthquake M = log I / S (where I is the intensity of the earthquake taken 100km from epicenter, S is the intensity of a standard earthquake) First earthquake 7.8 = log I1 / S Second earthquake 7.1 = log I2 / S If we solve this for I1/I2, we get 10 ^ 1.10 ~ 12.5 > The intensity of first earthquake was 12.5 times as intense as the later earthquake.
- NZ_Matt 11y ago
  The richter scale in general is not a good indicator of the destructiveness of an earthquake. You need to consider the location of the epicenter and the depth of the quake before coming to any sort of conclusion. I experienced this first hand here in Christchurch, NZ. We had a 7.1M quake and then a 6.3M aftershock 6 months later. Despite being almost an entire magnitude smaller the 6.3M aftershock was 10x more destructive. This was primarily because the epicenter of the 6.3M quake was 40km closer to the city and some unusually high verticle accelerations caused by the strike slip motion of the fault and the local geography. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Canterbury_earthquake http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Canterbury_earthquake http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Christchurch_earthquake http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Christchurch_earthquake The Mercalli Intensity Scale was developed to give a better indicator of the actual effect to people on the ground. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercalli_intensity_scale http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercalli_intensity_scale

th0br0 11y ago

The Richter scale is logarithmic and therefore, a doubling of values is not equivalent to a doubling of force.