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  • From: EarthNSky <erthnsky AT bellsouth.net>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Pretty, and pretty scary, California map
  • Date: Sat, 19 Apr 2008 12:34:22 -0400



Gene GeRue wrote:

Now, how many people do you think will make home location choices based on information like this?


About the same number of people who understand the logrhythmic scale and base 10. Seriously. The difference between the numbers on the scale represent a tenfold increase per number AND releases about 31 times more energy than the previous number in magnitude....ten times larger on the scale, 30 times more energy to release(probably would be a longer quake). That's hard for people to comprehend how a 7 or 8 mag quake could be much worse than the 5 they had last year or the 6 they had 20 years ago.
For you homeschoolers, here's a couple of great pages on Richter:
http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF7/701.html
and http://www.seismo.unr.edu/ftp/pub/louie/class/100/magnitude.html

Also realize that the original Richter scale was only really accurate to about 6.8 in mag, but today's modified Richter, moment magnitude scales have no upper boundary and could theoretically measure greater than 10 in mag (think asteroid impact or multiple warhead nukes)

So Gene, you were what, 35 miles from the epicenter of the Northridge quake and it almost threw you out of bed at a mag 6.7...can you imagine a 7.7, something 10 times stronger and has 30 times more energy? What about an 8.5 or 8.7? It is hard to think about, and hence people don't and retreat to that place called "it won't happen to me". But you know this.


Bev

--
BevanRon of EarthNSky Farm NW Georgia USDA Zone 7
34.498N 85.076W Bev is Earth, Ron is Sky





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