What is the Richter Scale?

The Richter Scale is a simple scale from 1 to 10.

It is used to measure the intensity of an earthquake. 10 means a very high intensity earthquake, 1 means a very mild earthquake.

The most powerful quake ever recorded was a 9.8.

It was devised in 1935 by American seismologists (people who study earthquakes) Charles F. Richter and Beno Gutenberg.

It is a logarithmic scale. Which means that each number on the scale means a 10 fold increase.

How is the scale calculated

The scale is based on the strength of the waves as recorded on the surface of the earth by seismographs. This strength is influenced by many factors, but the two most important are:

A. How deep was the earthquake. As you can imagine, an earthquake deep under the crush will send fewer waves to the surface.

B. How strong were the waves

What do the numbers really mean?

Earthquakes less than 5.0 on the Richter scale are usually too low to be felt or are only felt in a very light way over a small area.

Quakes between 5-8 are increasingly more intense and also cause more damage. High magnitude quakes in the sea can also trigger tsunamis – big waves that travel thousands of kilometers and hit the shore at great speed.

Quakes above 8 are very severe and thankfully, equally rare.