Richter scale

English thumb Etymology en American seismologist Charles Richter = 1900 1985, whose name derives from en de Richter judge. Pronunciation en /ˈɹɪkt.ɚ skeɪl/ US, Canada en En-us-Richter scale.ogg US Proper noun 1 en seismology A logarithmic scale used to express the energy released by an earthquake, each increase of 1 representing a 31-fold increase in energy, and a 10-fold increase in the measured wave amplitude. en-GB Nicola Davis Bill McGuire What caused Myanmar and Thailand earthquake and how big was it? The Guardian 2025-03-28 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/28/what-caused-the-myanmar-and-thailand-earthquake-and-how-big-was-it 0261-3077 “The Richter scale is an old scale developed for California. It is only good for smaller quakes, and is not very good at differentiating the sizes of bigger shocks,” said McGuire. https://web.archive.org/web/20261018021621/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/28/what-caused-the-myanmar-and-thailand-earthquake-and-how-big-was-it 18 October 2026 Usage notes Now mostly replaced by the moment magnitude scale, which is often incorrectly referred to as en Richter scale in news media. Translations logarithmic scale Arabic: ar مِقْيَاس رِيخْتَر m Belarusian: be шкала́ Ры́хтэра f Bulgarian: bg скала на Ри́хтер f Chinese: Mandarin: cmn 里氏地震規模 Lǐ shì dìzhèn guīmó, cmn 芮氏地震規模 Ruǐ shì dìzhèn guīmó, cmn 黎克特制震級 Líkètè zhì zhènjí Czech: cs Richterova stupnice f, cs Richterova škála f Dutch: nl schaal van Richter Finnish: fi Richter-asteikko French: fr échelle de Richter f German: de Richterskala f Greek: el κλίμακα Ρίχτερ f Haitian Creole: ht echèl Richter Hawaiian: haw pālākiō ikehu ōlaʻi Hungarian: hu Richter-skála Indonesian: id skala Richter Irish: ga scála Richter m Italian: it scala Richter f Japanese: ja リヒター・スケール Rihitā-sukēru Kazakh: kk Рихтер бағамы Korean: ko ^리히터 규모 Persian: fa مقیاس ریشتر meqyâs-e rišter Polish: pl skala Richtera f Portuguese: pt escala Richter f Brazil, pt escala de Richter f Portugal Russian: ru шкала́ Ри́хтера f Serbo-Croatian: Cyrillic: sh Рихтерова скала f, sh Рихтерова љествица f Latin: sh Richterova skala f, sh Richterova ljestvica f Spanish: es escala Richter f, es escala de Richter f Swedish: sv richterskala c Turkish: tr Richter ölçeği Ukrainian: uk шкала́ Рі́хтера f Noun A value on the Richter scale. en The students also faced and experienced earthquakes at various Richter scales. See also en Fujita scale en Torino scale en moment magnitude scale