Hong Kong Observatory Brand Hong Kong - Asia's world city
GovHK Traditional Chinese Simplified Chinese Search
Search Site Map Contact Us
Print Version
Back

Print Version PDF Version

Richter Scale

 

The magnitude of an earthquake is estimated using the amplitudes and periods of earth movement recorded by standard instruments, and is an indication of the amount of energy released at the focus.

The Richter Scale is logarithmic. An increase of one step in magnitude corresponds to an approximately 32-fold increase in energy. A difference of two steps in magnitude means a difference of 1000 (~ 32 x 32 ) times in energy.

 2003 | Important notices | Privacy policy Last revision date: <02 Oct 2009>