This won't be devastating for sure, thanks God.
I just would like to point out that the differences in the reports from scientists/sources regarding the magnitude in these cases (one claiming 7.0,
another one 7.3 etc) aren't necessarly determined by some state of confusion:
Basically, there are two scales:
the
Moment Magnituted Scale, Known as MMS (Mw) is used to determine the size of a shock intended as
energy released:
this can be achieved by doing some calculations involving (Rigidity of Earth) and [(amount of slip on the fault) + (size of the area involved in the
shock)]: the last two ones, would work as multipliers.
I know, it's some inaccurate explanation, but that is the best i can do on some post on a board

: USGS uses this one, anyway. It's often called
"Richter" but actually, is NOT.
The
Richtermagnitude scale, known as
Local Magnitude Scale, it's older, and is based on the assignement of a number to the amount of
seismic energy, so the basic is the same, what's different is the process: you have to obtain a |Scale-10 logarithm | scale, using data collected by
this or somthing based on it anyway. And NOT, don't think that between a 7.0 and a 6.0 shock
there's a difference of 1/10th in strenght: it doesn't work that way.
Table comparing magnitudes towards the upper end of the Richter Scale for major Californian earthquakes.
The approximate TNT for seismic energy yield in this case was around 50 megatons, and given the depht i'd say that not even damages will be reported.
I could be wrong but not very much, we'll see, anyway.
Ah : what makes you think that the seismic activity in the area is out of the ordinary, may i ask? It's a question i'm posing after looking at the
data and everything seems to be ordinary, in my humble opinion.
[edit on 24/10/2009 by internos]