As seismologists gained more experience from earthquake records, it became obvious that the problem could not be reduced to a single peak acceleration. In fact, a full frequency of vibrations occurs.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I suggested that we might compare earthquakes in terms of the measured amplitudes recorded at these stations, with an appropriate correction for distance.
I couldn't help but be impressed by the magnitude of the earthquake.
If one introduces the concept of energy of an earthquake then that is a theoretically derived quantity.
What emerged, of course, was that the magnitude scale presupposed that all earthquakes were alike except for a constant scaling factor. And this proved to be closer to the truth than we expected.
After a while, you can't get any higher. It's like your head is in a wind tunnel - everything is vibrating.
Shortly after the 2004 Indonesian earthquake, I read that the earthquake had affected the rotation of the earth, shortening the length of our 24-hour day. Even though the change was extremely slight - only a few microseconds - I found the idea incredibly haunting.
Each year, at the typical nuclear reactor in the U.S., there's a 1 in 74,176 chance of an earthquake strong enough to cause damage to the reactor's core, which could expose the public to radiation. No tsunami required.
I'm glad to see the press now referring to the open-ended Richter scale.
It's not unexpected that shooting massive amounts of water, sand, and chemicals at high pressure into the earth to shatter shale and release natural gas might shake things up. But earthquakes aren't the worst problem with fracking.
We had our first earthquake over here recently. That was a bizarre feeling. I just became disoriented and I remember my dad freaking out. Nothing broke or anything.