News outlets are reporting a magnitude 7.1 earthquake—about five times stronger than the one that occurred yesterday—near Ridgecrest, CA, location of BLM’s Regional Wild Horse and Burro Corrals.
Earthquake scales are logarithmic. Magnitude 7 is ten times stronger than magnitude 6 and 100 times stronger than magnitude 5. The earthquake of July 4th had a magnitude of 6.4 (scale unknown) and the one on July 5th was reported as 7.1. To compute the strength ratio, take the difference in magnitude and use it as an exponent of ten:
10 ^ (7.1 – 6.4) = 5.0
Note that the ‘strength’ of an earthquake depends on the method of measurement.
Same for any other physical quantity, such as global temperature, or the number of wild horses in the Twin Peaks HMA.
This is very important if you have an agenda: Change the method, get a new number.
RELATED: Earthquake Near WHB Corrals?
