RE: What do you know today that you didn't know yesterday?
April 30, 2023 at 2:13 pm
(This post was last modified: April 30, 2023 at 2:18 pm by Anomalocaris.)
(April 30, 2023 at 1:40 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:(April 30, 2023 at 1:33 pm)Anomalocaris Wrote: the single largest earthquake that occurs on earth during a typical decade releases more energy than the combined total energy released by all other earth quakes that occurs around the world during that same decade.
The doesn’t sound plausible. If there are just two magnitude 5.0 quakes in a decade, there would have to be a 10.0+ magnitude quake in the same decade.
Boru
Earthquake magnitudes are exponential. a magnitude 5.2 earthquake would release as much energy as 2 magnitude 5.0 earthquakes. a magnitude 6 earthquake would release 32 times as much energy as a magnitude 5 earthquake, and a magnitude 9 earthquake will release nearly an million times as much energy as an magnitude 5 earthquake.
There can be no magnitude 10 earthquake, at least not if the earthquake is caused by fault movements driven by internal forces of the earth, and not by an asteroid impact. This is because the strength of earth rocks puts an upper limit on how much energy can be stored in faults on earth before the fault has to rupture and release the energy.