example if 8 times1014 joules of

Question

Example   If 8 ×10¹⁴  joules of energy is released at the time of an earthquake what was the magnitude of the earthquake?

Solution

There actually isn't much to do here other than to plug in the formula.

M = (2/3) log (8 ×10¹⁴   /10^4.4) = (2/3) log (8 × 10 ^9.6 ) =           (2/3)10.50308999 )= 7.002

Thus, it looks like we'll contain a magnitude of about 7.