[Original Lurker]

Example.
A 5.0 is 10X the magnitude of a 4.0 on the Richter scale.

Example.
A 5.1 is twice the magnitude of a 5.0 on the Richter scale.

Make sense?

[CommerceComet]

Another way to think about the Richter scale as a simple logarithm. The Richter scale is the exponent on the base 10. So an earthquake of 4 is 10⁴ or 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 units of magnitude or 10,000 units. A earthquake of 5 on the Richter scale is 10⁵ or 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 or 100,000 units of magnitude. Each increment of 1 on the exponent causes the entire measurement of multitude to be increased by 10 because it is telling you to multiply the previous total by another 10.

[Rumplemeyer]

Yes, Thank You.

How is the magnitude determined?