Richter Scale
| The magnitude of an earthquake is estimated using the amplitudes and periods of earth movement recorded by standard instruments, and is an indication of the amount of energy released at the focus.
The Richter Scale is logarithmic. An increase of one step in magnitude corresponds to an approximately 32-fold increase in energy. A difference of two steps in magnitude means a difference of 1000 (~ 32 x 32 ) times in energy. |