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An earthquake is the shaking of the surface of Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes may also be referred to as quakes, tremors, or temblors. The word tremor is also used for non-earthquake seismic rumbling . In its most general sense, an earthquake is any seismic event ...
The Richter scale [1] (/ ˈ r ɪ k t ər /), also called the Richter magnitude scale, Richter's magnitude scale, and the Gutenberg–Richter scale, [2] is a measure of the strength of earthquakes, developed by Charles Richter in collaboration with Beno Gutenberg, and presented in Richter's landmark 1935 paper, where he called it the "magnitude scale". [3]
A seismic wave is a mechanical wave of acoustic energy that travels through the Earth or another planetary body. It can result from an earthquake (or generally, a quake ), volcanic eruption, magma movement, a large landslide and a large man-made explosion that produces low-frequency acoustic energy.
Seismology ( / saɪzˈmɒlədʒi, saɪs -/; from Ancient Greek σεισμός ( seismós) meaning "earthquake" and -λογία ( -logía) meaning "study of") is the scientific study of earthquakes (or generally, quakes) and the generation and propagation of elastic waves through the Earth or other planetary bodies. It also includes studies of ...
Submarine earthquake, an earthquake that occurs underwater at the bottom of a body of water, especially an ocean. [ 17] Supershear earthquake, an earthquake in which the propagation of the rupture along the fault surface occurs at speeds in excess of the seismic shear wave (S-wave) velocity, causing an effect analogous to a sonic boom. [ 18]
Earthquake prediction is a branch of the science of seismology concerned with the specification of the time, location, and magnitude of future earthquakes within stated limits, [1] [a] and particularly "the determination of parameters for the next strong earthquake to occur in a region". [2] Earthquake prediction is sometimes distinguished from ...
Earthquakes. The moment magnitude scale ( MMS; denoted explicitly with M or Mw or Mwg, and generally implied with use of a single M for magnitude [1]) is a measure of an earthquake 's magnitude ("size" or strength) based on its seismic moment. Mw was defined in a 1979 paper by Thomas C. Hanks and Hiroo Kanamori.
A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 7.1 has rocked the coast of southern Japan, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The epicenter of the earthquake is just a dozen miles off ...