Japan Meteorological Agency seismic intensity scale Japan Meteorological Agency seismic intensity scale The Japan Meteorological Agency seismic intensity scale is a seismic scale used in Japan to measure the intensity of earthquakes. It is measured in units of . Unlike magnitude measures such as the moment magnitude scale (Mw), and the earlier Richter magnitude scale, which attempt to describe the energy released by the earthquake, the JMA scale describes the degree of shaking at various points on the Earth's surface, and is analogous to the Mercalli intensity scale. The intensity of an earthquake is not totally determined by its magnitude, but varies with event's depth, and
Order of magnitude An order-of-magnitude difference between two values is a factor of 10. For example, the mass of the planet Saturn is 95 times that of Earth, so Saturn is "two orders of magnitude" more massive than Earth. Order-of-magnitude differences are called decades when measured on a logarithmic scale. Other orders of magnitude may be calculated using bases other than 10. The ancient Greeks ranked the nighttime brightness of celestial bodies by 6 levels in which each level was the fifth root of one hundred (about 2.512) as bright as the nearest weaker level of brightness, and thus the brightest level being