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The Richter Scale is a Magnitude scale - it is used to calculate the magnitude of small and medium sized earthquakes (those with a magnitude less than 7). The other scales most commonly used for recording Earthquakes are the Moment Magnitude Scale and the Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale.

The Intensity scale of the Earthquake measures the effect of the earthquake at a particular location. In general it is highest at the epicenter and gets lower as you go further. The value of intensity changes from place to place.

The Moment Magnitude scale measures the actual amount of energy released during the Earthquake and is derived based on the rigidity / stiffness of the crust, the length of fault that slipped and it's cross sectional area.

An Earthquake has only one value of magnitude, and it does not change from place to place. The scale is logarithmic.

However the now outmoded Richter scale used a different method of deriving the energy release based on the maximum amplitude of the seismic waves detected on seismometers. As such it was a measurement of the local magnitude (i.e. local to the seismometer) rather than the absolute magnitude of the earthquake.

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