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The Richter scale [1] (/ ˈ r ɪ k t ər /), also called the Richter magnitude scale, Richter's magnitude scale, and the Gutenberg–Richter scale, [2] is a measure of the strength of earthquakes, developed by Charles Richter in collaboration with Beno Gutenberg, and presented in Richter's landmark 1935 paper, where he called it the "magnitude scale". [3]
Earthquakes (6.0+ M w) between 1900 and 2017 Earthquakes are caused by movements within the Earth's crust and uppermost mantle.They range from weak events detectable only by seismometers, to sudden and violent events lasting many minutes which have caused some of the greatest disasters in human history.
Second, Richter arbitrarily defined the zero point of the scale to be where an earthquake at a distance of 100 km makes a maximum horizontal displacement of 0.001 mm (1 μm, or 0.00004 in.) on a seismogram recorded with a Wood-Anderson torsion seismograph. [14]
The relationship between earthquake magnitude and frequency was first proposed by Charles Francis Richter and Beno Gutenberg in a 1944 paper studying earthquakes in California, [2] [3] and generalised in a worldwide study in 1949. [4]
The 1960 Valdivia earthquake and tsunami (Spanish: Terremoto de Valdivia) or the Great Chilean earthquake (Gran terremoto de Chile) occurred on 22 May 1960.Most studies have placed it at 9.4–9.6 on the moment magnitude scale, [1] while some studies have placed the magnitude lower than 9.4, [6] [7] making it the most powerful earthquake ever recorded.
The reason for the intensity and high frequency of earthquakes is the Indian plate driving into Asia at a rate of approximately 47 mm/year. [1] The following is a list of major earthquakes which have occurred in India , including those with epicentres outside India that caused significant damage or casualties in the country.
The North African town of Ouargla, Algeria, which is located in the Sahara Desert, just experienced temperatures of 124 F, or 51 C, which may be the highest ever recorded on the continent.
In two most recent investigations using statistically stable samples for Italian earthquakes (approximately 100,000 events over the period 1981–2002 in the Richter local [M L ] magnitude range of 3.5–5.8) [5] and for Indian earthquakes exemplified by an aftershock sequence of 121 events with M s (surface wave magnitude) > 4.0 in 2001 in the Bhuj area of northwestern India, [4] the latest ...