Changes

To find out how much more powerful one earthquake is from another, subtract the two numbers and take the inverse log of the result.  Going from a 7.9 earthquake to an 8.0 earthquake you get 8.0 - 7.9 resulting in 0.1.  The inverse log of 0.1 is 1.2589... so the increase in magnitude is approximately 1.25x.

To find out how much more powerful one earthquake is from another, subtract the two numbers and take the inverse log of the result.  Going from a 7.9 earthquake to an 8.0 earthquake you get 8.0 - 7.9 resulting in 0.1.  The inverse log of 0.1 is 1.2589... so the increase in magnitude is approximately 1.25x.

The amount of energy released is about 31x more with each whole number increase.  To make the ground shake 10x more, you need to release 31x more energy.  This is only useful for comparing with explosions and other natural phenomena.  For example, a [[tornado]] releases about the same amount of energy as a 4.5 magnitude earthquake and a small nuclear explosion is similar to a 4.0 magnitude earthquake.<ref>[http://www.seismo.unr.edu/ftp/pub/louie/class/100/magnitude.html]</ref>

The amount of energy released is about 31x more with each whole number increase.  To make the ground shake 10x more, you need to release 31x more energy.  This is only useful for comparing with explosions and other natural phenomena.  For example, a [[tornado]] releases about the same amount of energy as a 4.5 magnitude earthquake and a small [[nuclear]] explosion is similar to a 4.0 magnitude earthquake.<ref>[http://www.seismo.unr.edu/ftp/pub/louie/class/100/magnitude.html]</ref>

 

==External Links==

==External Links==