Seismic magnitude scales the International Association of Seismology and Physics of the Earth's Interior (IASPEI) has standardized the measurement procedures and equations for the principal magnitude scales, , , , and . The first scale for measuring earthquake magnitudes, developed in 1935 by Charles F. Richter and popularly known as the "Richter" scale, is actually the , label ML or M. Richter established two features now common to all magnitude scales. First, the scale is logarithmic, so that each unit represents a ten-fold increase in the "amplitude" of the seismic waves. As the energy of a wave is 10 times its amplitude, each
Order of magnitude Order of magnitude An order of magnitude is an approximate measure of the number of digits that a number has in the commonly-used base-ten number system. It is equal to the logarithm (base 10) rounded to a whole number. For example, the order of magnitude of 1500 is 3, because 1500 = 1.5 × 10. Differences in order of magnitude can be measured on a base-10 logarithmic scale in “decades” (i.e., factors of ten). Examples of numbers of different magnitudes can be found at Orders of magnitude (numbers). Generally, the order of magnitude of a number is the smallest power