Moment Magnitude Scale - Comparative Energy Released By Two Earthquakes

Comparative Energy Released By Two Earthquakes

As with the Richter scale, an increase of one step on this logarithmic scale corresponds to a 101.5 ≈ 32 times increase in the amount of energy released, and an increase of two steps corresponds to a 103 = 1000 times increase in energy.

The following formula, obtained by solving the previous equation for, allows one to assess the proportional difference in energy release between earthquakes of two different moment magnitudes, say and :

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