Moment magnitude scale as (in Joules). Unfortunately, the duration of many very large earthquakes was longer than 20 seconds, the period of the surface waves used in the measurement of . This meant that giant earthquakes such as the 1960 Chilean earthquake (M 9.5) were only assigned an . Caltech seismologist Hiroo Kanamori recognized this deficiency and he took the simple but important step of defining a magnitude based on estimates of radiated energy, , where the "w" stood for work (energy): Kanamori recognized that measurement of radiated energy is technically difficult since it involves integration of wave energy over the entire frequency
Orders of magnitude (power) MW. Also, 1 MW is approximately 1360 horsepower. Modern high-power diesel-electric locomotives typically have a peak power of 3–5 MW, while a typical modern nuclear power plant produces on the order of 500–2000 MW peak output. Orders of magnitude (power) This page lists examples of the power in watts produced by various sources of energy. They are grouped by orders of magnitude. The productive capacity of electrical generators operated by utility companies is often measured in MW. Few things can sustain the transfer or consumption of energy on this scale; some of these events or entities include: lightning strikes, naval