Moment magnitude scale released, and an increase of two steps corresponds to a 10 (1,000) times increase in energy. Thus, an earthquake of "M" of 7.0 releases about 32 times as much energy as one of 6.0 and nearly 1,000 times one of 5.0. The moment magnitude is based on the seismic moment of the earthquake, which is equal to the shear modulus of the rock near the fault multiplied by the average amount of slip on the fault and the size of the area that slipped. Since January 2002, the MMS has been the scale used by the United States Geological Survey
Richter magnitude scale isolated area. Several scales have historically been described as the "Richter scale", especially the "local magnitude" formula_2 and the surface wave formula_3 scale. In addition, the "body wave magnitude", formula_4, and the "moment magnitude", formula_5, abbreviated MMS, have been widely used for decades. A couple of new techniques to measure magnitude are in the development stage by seismologists. All magnitude scales have been designed to give numerically similar results. This goal has been achieved well for formula_2, formula_3, and formula_5. The formula_4 scale gives somewhat different values than the other scales. The reason for so many different ways to measure