The Richter Scale: A 9 is ten times stronger than an 8

[panader0]

An 8 is ten times stronger than a 7. And so on. Wow.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richter_magnitude_scale

[catenary]

1. The diurnal system - night is darker than day

...

[Teaser]

6. yes, and?

.

[catenary]

8. And usually colder.

:eyes:

[Teaser]

11. but not logarithmically so

which is the point the OP is making.

Some people find this interesting and the level of power discharged in a 9 Richter earthquake to be impressive.

[catenary]

15. Sorry...I'm a retired teacher and I've discovered that nowadays not 1 in 10 HS 'graduates'

has the foggiest idea what a logarithm is.
:cry:

[Teaser]

19. non-retired college professor

and it has been my experience that students never understood what a logarithm was even 20 years ago.

it should have a more conventional notation, and not be transcribed as a function. It would be less scary to students then.

[panader0]

20. I understand what a logarithm is.

But when I impute that into the actuality of the quake it still boggles my mind.

[notesdev]

21. tell me about it

All you need to do is discuss economics with people to get slapped in the face with how few understand even the simplest exponential function.

[WillyT]

13. And A Brand New DU Smart Ass !!!

:rofl:

:evilgrin:

[Teaser]

14. an oversupplied market, there

.

[catenary]

17. Yeah, but being free of charge it doesn't upset the supply and demand applecart

:D

[panader0]

7. Welcome to DU

Darker than day, lighter than night.

[catenary]

9. I thank you! Less than effusive but more than passive.

fun stuff :D

[whoneedstickets]

2. Yeah, and that's just shake amplituded, in terms of energy..

..2pts =1000 times more energy. WHOA!

[MzNov]

3. yes, that's correct

each 1 pt is x10 !! amazing

[Teaser]

4. Logarithmic scale, yes

.

[Lucian]

5. Maybe it's a government conspiracy brought on by industrualization...

that these strong earthquakes are occurring. Or it's greenhouse gases that go in our atmosphere that somehow affect processes happening many miles underground.

:eyes:

Never mind the fact that strong earthquakes have been happening since the surface of the Earth has solidified and man has only been able to accurately determine the strength of an earthquake since the 1930s.

[panader0]

12. Not a government conspiracy, not man's doing either

Mother Nature flexing her muscles.
It's happened many times on a much greater scale.
Kinda puts things in perspective.

[Lucian]

16. It just means that the energy stored in those plates,

a process that takes years as rock can hold a lot of energy, is finally being released. That is all. It's the unfortunate consequence of plate tectonics. Nothing more. Nothing less.

[NYC_SKP]

10. True, but the "Moment Magnitude Scale" is replacing the 1930s era "Richter Scale".

--

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_magnitude_scale

IIRC we were hearing both used during the last major quake. :shrug:

from wikipedia:

Comparison with Richter scale
Main article: Richter magnitude scale

In 1935, Charles Richter and Beno Gutenberg developed the local magnitude (ML) scale (popularly known as the Richter scale) with the goal of quantifying medium-sized earthquakes (between magnitude 3.0 and 7.0) in Southern California. This scale was based on the ground motion measured by a particular type of seismometer at a distance of 100 kilometres (62 mi) from the earthquake's epicenter.<3>. Because of this, there is an upper limit on the highest measurable magnitude, and all large earthquakes will tend to have a local magnitude of around 7. The magnitude becomes unreliable for measurements taken at a distance of more than about 600 kilometres (370 mi) from the epicenter.

The moment magnitude (Mw) scale was introduced in 1979 by Caltech seismologists Thomas C. Hanks and Hiroo Kanamori to address these shortcomings while maintaining consistency. Thus, for medium-sized earthquakes, the moment magnitude values should be similar to Richter values. That is, a magnitude 5.0 earthquake will be about a 5.0 on both scales. This scale was based on the physical properties of the earthquake, specifically the seismic moment (M0). Unlike other scales, the moment magnitude scale does not saturate at the upper end; there is no upper limit to the possible measurable magnitudes. However, this has the side-effect that the scales diverge for smaller earthquakes.<1>

Moment magnitude is now the most common measure for medium to large earthquake magnitudes,<8> but breaks down for smaller quakes. For example, the United States Geological Survey does not use this scale for earthquakes with a magnitude of less than 3.5, which is the great majority of quakes. For these smaller quakes, other magnitude scales are used. All magnitudes are calibrated to the ML scale of Richter and Gutenberg.

Magnitude scales differ from earthquake intensity, which is the perceptible moving, shaking, and local damages experienced during a quake. The shaking intensity at a given spot depends on many factors, such as soil types, soil sublayers, depth, type of displacement, and range from the epicenter (not counting the complications of building engineering and architectural factors). Rather, they are used to estimate only the total energy released by the quake.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moment_magnitude_scale

:patriot:

[panader0]

18. Thanks for the info.

[Lucky Luciano]

22. Actually no...it is not base 10. One point is actually about 32 times stronger.

So the 9.0 in Japan was about 1000 times stronger than the 7.0 that hit Haiti.

Fucking crazy.