How to read the seismograph?
Aug 17, 2010
in
Earthquake Questions
I only know that Richter scale 3 will shake 0.1 mm at a distance of 100 kilometer. It increases by ten fold for each Richter scale magnitude. Give example how it will vary according the distance of epicenter. They say it is Inverse Square of the distance. Please explain with a model calculation. If an earthquake is measured from a distance of 2000 kilometers from epicenter and if the magnitude is 9 in Richter scale what will be the maximum shaking. Will the S wave pass through sea water.?
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One comment
luka d on August 17, 2010 at 1:05 am
First question: I think you mean amplitude rather than shaking.:
Michigan tech has a nice page with graphs that show you how to read a seismogram and how to estimate the distance between the instrument and the epicenter of an earthquake.
http://www.geo.mtu.edu/UPSeis/locating.html
Second question:
While the P wave travels through both solids and liquids, the S wave (secondary wave) travels only through solids. So no, it doesn’t pass through sea water.
http://www.geo.mtu.edu/UPSeis/waves.html