Why the Richter Scale is useful?

Answer 1

The Richter magnitude scale assigns a single number to quantify the amount of seismic energy released by an earthquake. An earthquake that measures 6 on the Richter scale is 10 times more powerful than one that measures 5.

Answer 2

The Richter scale is used to measure small to moderate magnitude earthquakes. The numerical levels of the scale indicate the energy released by a particular quake.

The numerical value is obtained from the logarithm of the maximum amplitude of seismic waves as recorded on a seismometer. This value is then scaled to account for the distance from the epicentre of the earthquake to the seismometer so as to allow the value to be correlated with the local magnitude readings from other seismometers in differing locations (as seismic waves lose their energy as they propagate through the earth so if this correction was not made, then different seismometer stations at different distances would give differing Richter magnitudes for the same earthquake). The Richter magnitude measurement produced by this methodology in theory has no limit and may be positive or negative.

As stated above, the Richter scale itself is a logarithmic mathematical formula which is calibrated so that a ten fold increase in amplitude relates to a single whole number increase on the scale (e.g. an earthquake with a Richter magnitude of 5 has seismic waves with a maximum amplitude 10 times larger than those for a magnitude 4). It has a number of practical limitations, in that it is poor at recording earthquakes with magnitudes greater than 7 and at distances greater than 650 km from a seismometer.

The equation for calculating the Richter magnitude (MR) is shown below:

MR = (Log10A) - (Log10A0)

Where

A = maximum zero to peak amplitude of seismic wave (mm) recorded.

A0 = Empirical function derived from the distance from seismometer station to earthquake epicentre

Log10A0 From 0 to 200 km distance:

Log10A0 = 0.15 - 1.6 log(distance in km)

Between 200 and 600 km distance by:

Log10A0 = 3.38 - 3.0 log(distance in km)

Answer 3

The Richter scale is simply a logarithmic measurement of the seismic energy released by an earthquake. It does not predict when or where future earthquakes will occur.

Answer 4

The Richter Scale measures how much energy is released by an earthquake.

Answer 5

The Richter Scale is used to measure the intensity of an earthquake.

Answer 6

it measures earthquake magnatude

Answer 7

measuring the intensity of an earthquake

Answer 8

To measure the intensity of earthquakes