Essay from the year 2009 in the subject Geography / Earth Science - Physical Geography, Geomorphology, Environmental Studies, grade: A, , course: Calculus, language: English, abstract: Abstract The Richter Scale is a quantitative measure of the magnitude of an earthquake. It has been invented in 1935 by Charles F. Richter and is based the amplitude measured by a seismograph with a correction factor for the distance from the centre of the earthquake from which the measurement is taken. This measurement is totally independent from the damage that it might cause. Although invented in 74 years ago, it is still in use and has many advantages compared to the other scales used for earthquakes.

Essay from the year 2009 in the subject Geography / Earth Science - Physical Geography, Geomorphology, Environmental Studies, grade: A, course: Calculus, language: English, abstract: Abstract The Richter Scale is a quantitative measure of the magnitude of an earthquake. It has been invented in 1935 by Charles F. Richter and is based the amplitude measured by a seismograph with a correction factor for the distance from the centre of the earthquake from which the measurement is taken. This measurement is totally independent from the damage that it might cause. Although invented in 74 years ago, it is still in use and has many advantages compared to the other scales used for earthquakes.

By developing the scale that bears his name, Charles Richter not only invented the concept of magnitude as a measure of earthquake size, he turned himself into nothing less than a household word. He remains the only seismologist whose name anyone outside of narrow scientific circles would likely recognize. Yet few understand the Richter scale itself, and even fewer have ever understood the man. Drawing on the wealth of papers Richter left behind, as well as dozens of interviews with his family and colleagues, Susan Hough takes the reader deep into Richter's complex life story, setting it in the context of his family and interpersonal attachments, his academic career, and the history of seismology. Among his colleagues Richter was known as intensely private, passionately interested in earthquakes, and iconoclastic. He was an avid nudist, seismologists tell each other with a grin; he dabbled in poetry. He was a publicity hound, some suggest, and more famous than he deserved to be. But even his closest associates were unaware that he struggled to reconcile an intense and abiding need for artistic expression with his scientific interests, or that his apparently strained relationship with his wife was more unconventional but also stronger than they knew. Moreover, they never realized that his well-known foibles might even have been the consequence of a profound neurological disorder. In this biography, Susan Hough artfully interweaves the stories of Richter's life with the history of earthquake exploration and seismology. In doing so, she illuminates the world of earth science for the lay reader, much as Sylvia Nasar brought the world of mathematics alive in A Beautiful Mind.

Improved Seismic Monitoringâ€"Improved Decision-Making, describes and assesses the varied economic benefits potentially derived from modernizing and expanding seismic monitoring activities in the United States. These benefits include more effective loss avoidance regulations and strategies, improved understanding of earthquake processes, better engineering design, more effective hazard mitigation strategies, and improved emergency response and recovery. The economic principles that must be applied to determine potential benefits are reviewed and the report concludes that although there is insufficient information available at present to fully quantify all the potential benefits, the annual dollar costs for improved seismic monitoring are in the tens of millions and the potential annual dollar benefits are in the hundreds of millions.

The destructive force of earthquakes has stimulated human inquiry since ancient times, yet the scientific study of earthquakes is a surprisingly recent endeavor. Instrumental recordings of earthquakes were not made until the second half of the 19th century, and the primary mechanism for generating seismic waves was not identified until the beginning of the 20th century. From this recent start, a range of laboratory, field, and theoretical investigations have developed into a vigorous new discipline: the science of earthquakes. As a basic science, it provides a comprehensive understanding of earthquake behavior and related phenomena in the Earth and other terrestrial planets. As an applied science, it provides a knowledge base of great practical value for a global society whose infrastructure is built on the Earth's active crust. This book describes the growth and origins of earthquake science and identifies research and data collection efforts that will strengthen the scientific and social contributions of this exciting new discipline.