richter scale definition

History at your fingertips

Schematic diagram of a 1924 Anderson-Wood torsion pendulum seismograph, the type used by seismologist Charles F. Richter to define his earthquake magnitude scale.

The scale has no upper limit but usually ranges from 1 to 9.

A small copper cylinder (C) was attached to a tungsten wire (T) between the poles (N, S) of a U-shaped permanent magnet.

Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2020Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012The American Heritage® Science Dictionary

Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Because it is logarithmic, an earthquake rated …

Noun.

Because it is logarithmic, an earthquake rated as 5 is ten times as powerful as one rated as 4. He serves currently as the editor of Earth and life sciences—covering climatology, geology, zoology, and other topics that relate to the... Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox.

Check out Britannica's new site for parents!

Richter scale definition is - an open-ended logarithmic scale for expressing the magnitude of a seismic disturbance (such as an earthquake) in terms of the energy dissipated in it with 1.5 indicating the smallest earthquake that can be felt, 4.5 an earthquake causing slight …

Features

The scale has no upper limit but usually ranges from 1 to 9.

Richter scale (ML), quantitative measure of an earthquake ’s magnitude (size), devised in 1935 by American seismologists Charles F. Richter and Beno Gutenberg.

The Richter scale is named after the American seismologist Charles Francis Richter (1900-1985).

Richter scale. Richter scale - a logarithmic scale of 1 to 10 formerly used to express the magnitude of an earthquake on the basis of the size of seismograph oscillations.

This is how seismic safety is done, by the force of gravity, not from Richter-scale measurements.All Of These Words Are Offensive (But Only Sometimes)What Is The Difference Between “Furlough” vs. “Layoff”?Absentee Ballot vs. Mail-In Ballot: Is There A Difference?“Affect” vs. “Effect”: Use The Correct Word Every Time“Epidemic” vs. “Pandemic” vs. “Endemic”: What Do These Terms Mean?Don’t be verecund—we know you remember these popular words from July.

Search Britannica

The scale was developed for temblors occuring in southern California that were recorded using the Wood-Anderson seismograph and whose On the original Richter scale, the smallest earthquakes measurable at that time were assigned values close to zero on the seismograph of the period. Richter set up a magnitude scale of earthquakes as the logarithm to base 10 of the maximum seismic wave amplitude (in thousandths of a millimetre) recorded on a standard seismograph (the Wood-Anderson torsion pendulum seismograph) at a distance of 100 km (60 miles) from the earthquake epicentre.

Be adamantine, and get after that perfect score!a person's area of skill, knowledge, authority, or work.Dictionary.com Unabridged 1.

Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. geology - a science that deals with the history of the earth as recorded in rocks. Categories An earthquake with a magnitude of 1 is detectable only by seismographs; one with a magnitude of 7 is a major earthquake.

In response to oscillations of the ground caused by an earthquake, the pendulum swung in a nearly horizontal plane around the wire, its own free oscillation being reduced, or damped, by the magnetic field.

The Richter scale calculates an earthquake's magnitude (size) from the amplitude of the earthquake's largest seismic wave recorded by a seismograph.Seismic wave data being recorded by a seismograph during an earthquake.

[ rĭk ′tər ] A logarithmic scale used to rate the strength or total energy of earthquakes.

By signing up for this email, you are agreeing to news, offers, and information from Encyclopaedia Britannica.Be on the lookout for your Britannica newsletter to get trusted stories delivered right to your inbox. Since modern seismographs can detect For earthquakes measuring magnitude 6.5 or greater, Richter’s original

Magnification of its movements for recording purposes was made possible by use of a mirror (m).The Richter scale and how it measures earthquake magnitude. The earthquake’s magnitude is determined using the logarithm of the amplitude (height) of the largest seismic wave calibrated to a scale by a seismograph.

: a system of measurement used for showing the strength of an earthquake The earthquake measured 4.5 on the Richter scale.