Earthquake Magnitude Comparison
In this 5th episode we compare the power released for the biggest earthquakes from an everyday 2 0 earthquake to a 5 0 objects shifting quake we get a visualization of how powerful certain.
Earthquake magnitude comparison. The largest recorded earthquake in history was the so called great chilean earthquake or valdivia earthquake which occurred on may 22 1960 near valdivia in southern chile. The formula above is for moment in dyne cm. 1 90 degrees.
Mww moment w phase generic notation mw 5 0 and larger. The magnitude is the quantified measure of the earthquake size and is measured using a seismometer. Magnitude 9 quakes occur only every few years to decades on average but account for significant part of the total seismic energy released during whole centuries.
According to first estimates by geologists the blast was equivalent to a magnitude 4 5 earthquake comparable to the energy released by the detonation of 1 000 to 3 000 tons of tnt. Earthquake magnitude is a measure of the size or amplitude of the seismic waves generated by an earthquake source and recorded by seismographs. Note this is also unit dependent.
M w 2 3 log 10 m o 16 1 where m o is the seismic moment. It can be derived from the logarithm of the maximum displacement or amplitude of the earthquake. Earthquake magnitude comparison calculator.