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Earthquake, Magnitude

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Encyclopedia of Solid Earth Geophysics

Part of the book series: Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series ((EESS))

Synonyms

Richter scale

Definition

The magnitude of an earthquake is a number that characterizes the relative size or amount of elastic energy released by such an event (see Earthquakes, Energy ). It is usually based on measurement of the maximum ground motion recorded by a seismograph (sometimes for a particular wave type and frequency) and corrected for the decay of amplitudes with epicenter distance and source depth due to geometric spreading and attenuation during wave propagation (see Propagation of Elastic Waves: Fundamentals ).

Original definition of earthquake magnitude

The first paper on earthquake magnitude was published by Charles F. Richter (1935), titled An instrumental earthquake magnitude scale. Therefore, often reference is made to the size or strength of earthquakes as measured on the Richter scale. Yet, this may be incorrect, especially for large earthquakes (magnitude saturation). Richter (1935, p. 1) wrote: “In the course of historical or statistical study of...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department 2: Physics of the Earth, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Telegrafenberg, 14473, Potsdam, Germany

    Peter Bormann

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  1. Peter Bormann
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Correspondence to Peter Bormann .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. National Geophysical Research Institute, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, Hyderabad, India

    Harsh K. Gupta

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Bormann, P. (2011). Earthquake, Magnitude. In: Gupta, H.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Solid Earth Geophysics. Encyclopedia of Earth Sciences Series. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8702-7_3

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