The Moment Magnitude Scale (Mw)

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  • Created by: Basital
  • Created on: 20-09-17 14:34
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  • The Moment Magnitude Scale (Mw)
    • Introduced in 1979 by Hanks and Kanamori
    • Most commonly used method of describing the size of a microseism
      • Microseism: A faint earth tremor caused by natural phenomena, such as winds and strong ocean waves.
    • Measures the size of events in terms of how much energy is released
    • The amount of movement by rock and the area of the fault or fracture surface
      • (i.e. the distance of movement along a fault or fracture)
    • Calculated values can be easily compared to magnitude values for other events
    • More accurate scale for describing the size of events
    • an increase of one unit of magnitude on a magnitude scale is equivalent to an increase of 10 times the amplitude recorded by a seismograph and approximately 30 times the energy.

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