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Posted by MoparNorm [99.10.160.35] on Wednesday, August 24, 2011 at 20:18:04 :
In Reply to: Earthquake calculations posted by Geologist [174.96.190.192] on Wednesday, August 24, 2011 at 13:54:53 :
Thanks for the correction, I erred in omitting the whole number increase.
Each whole number increase in magnitude means that the ground motion of the quake is ten times greater than the previous whole number. Thus, an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.5 has ten times the ground motion of one with a magnitude of 5.5; an earthquake of 7.5 has 100 times the ground motion of the 5.5 earthquake, and so on.
There is a difference in measuring motion vs. energy.
The relative difference in the amount of energy from different earthquakes follows a different pattern. Instead of tenfold jumps with each increase in magnitude, energy released differs in roughly thirtyfold increments. So, an earthquake with a value of 7 releases about 30 times the amount of energy as an earthquake measured at 6, while an earthquake of 8 would release about 900 times the energy of a Richter magnitude 6 earthquake.