Is the Richter Scale a logarithmic scale? Is a 9.0 ten times the blast of an 8.0?
Actually what is being used now is called Moment Magnitude, not the Richter scale.
A 9.0 has 10 times the ground motion of an 8...
However, that's not energy per se.
A 9.0 has THIRTY TWO times the ENERGY of an 8.0. Each increase of 1 in Moment magnitude is 32 times the seismic energy.
yep