The Richter scale is a numerical scale used to quantify the magnitude of earthquakes. It was developed in the 1930s by Charles F. Richter and is based on the amplitude of the ground motion at a given distance from the epicenter of an earthquake. The scale ranges from 0 to 10, with each successive whole number representing an earthquake ten times stronger than the one before. However, since the scale is logarithmic, an increase of one unit represents a tenfold increase in the energy released by the earthquake.
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