Earthquake energy release

Doubt

Philosopher
Doubt
Joined
Apr 25, 2002
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Not sure how accurate this table is. I don’t have a geology background. I suspect the table may not take into account some variables. From what I understand, the Richter scale is considered to be out of date.

However, I do think that mankind’s puny nukes have nothing on Mother Nature.

http://www.geop.itu.edu.tr/~onur/seis/energy.html

Going by the chart, a 9.0 earthquake releases over 476 megatons of energy. That is 31,670 times the power of the bomb that nailed Hiroshima.

Last I heard, the quake that cause the tsunamis was an 8.9.

Your thoughts on this?
 
Sounds about right to me.

Having experienced a 7+ earthquake firsthand from close range...

A 7+ causes a shaking that last nearly a minute and is so severe that it is very difficult to remain standing. Imagine trying to stand in the bed of a pickup that was bumping along over uneven ground.

When you look out the back window and see a rather large mountain range and realize that as staggeringly massive as that mountain range is, it was just a very small part of the total mass that was shaken. You start realizing the enormity of the required energy to pull off such a feat.


A 9 would be 100 times stronger and would last many minutes. The mind simply boggles by how energy would be required to raise hundreds of miles of sea floor by 50 or 60 feet (permanently) and shake 1000s of square miles of planet very violently. And deliver enough energy to the ocean to kill people over 1000 miles away.

Frankly, I begin to wonder if 476 Megatons is enough?
 
source

Richter TNT for Seismic Example
Magnitude Energy Yield (approximate)

-1.5 6 ounces Breaking a rock on a lab table
1.0 30 pounds Large Blast at a Construction Site
1.5 320 pounds
2.0 1 ton Large Quarry or Mine Blast
2.5 4.6 tons
3.0 29 tons
3.5 73 tons
4.0 1,000 tons Small Nuclear Weapon
4.5 5,100 tons Average Tornado (total energy)
5.0 32,000 tons
5.5 80,000 tons Little Skull Mtn., NV Quake, 1992
6.0 1 million tons Double Spring Flat, NV Quake, 1994
6.5 5 million tons Northridge, CA Quake, 1994
7.0 32 million tons Hyogo-Ken Nanbu, Japan Quake, 1995; Largest Thermonuclear Weapon
7.5 160 million tons Landers, CA Quake, 1992
8.0 1 billion tons San Francisco, CA Quake, 1906
8.5 5 billion tons Anchorage, AK Quake, 1964
9.0 32 billion tons Chilean Quake, 1960
10.0 1 trillion tons (San-Andreas type fault circling Earth)

The scale is logarithmic. Note that an increase of 2 Richter scale units is a thousandfold increase in energy. So each single scale unit is sq-root of 1000 - a factor of about 32 times.
 
Doubt said:
However, I do think that mankind’s puny nukes have nothing on Mother Nature.

Your thoughts on this?
Click to expand...

This isn't because we can't, it's simply because it's strategically unsound to cause so much destruction.

The Soviets built a 100 megaton bomb and the U.S. military was happy to see their enemy waste so many resources to do something so useless.
 
fishbob said:
The scale is logarithmic. Note that an increase of 2 Richter scale units is a thousandfold increase in energy. So each single scale unit is sq-root of 1000 - a factor of about 32 times.
Click to expand...

Sure on that?

I know it is a log scale, but I thought an increase of 2 units was a 100 fold increase. (straight factor of 10 per unit)
 
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