Various folds in rocks

Earthquakes vary enormously in strength, and great

earthquakes produce wave amplitudes that are thousands of
times larger than those generated by weak tremors. To
accommodate this wide variation, Richter used a logarithmic
scale to express magnitude, where a tenfold increase in wave
amplitude corresponds to an increase of 1 on the magnitude
scale. Thus, the amount of ground shaking for a 5-magnitude
earthquake is 10 times greater than that produced by an
earthquake having a Richter magnitude of 4. In addition, each
unit of Richter magnitude equates to roughly a 32-fold energy
increase. Thus, an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.5 releases
32 times more energy than one with a magnitude of 5.5, and
roughly 1,000 times more energy than a 4.5-magnitude quake.
A major earthquake with a magnitude of 8.5 releases millions of
times more energy than the smallest earthquakes felt by
humans.