chilean quake's richter magnitude: 8.5
taiwan earthquake's richter magnitude: 7.6
about how much more energy was released by the chilean quake than the taiwan earthwquake?
a. twice as much
b. ten times as much
c. thirty two times as much
d. one thousand times as much
i think it's d.
They are in the powers of base 10. Thus a magnitude of 2 is 10 times as great as 1. Does this help?
Thanks for asking.
the answer is B
To determine the difference in energy release between the Chilean quake and the Taiwan earthquake, we need to compare their Richter magnitudes. The Richter magnitude is a logarithmic scale, which means that each increase in one unit corresponds to a tenfold increase in the amplitude of the seismic waves and approximately a 32-fold increase in the release of energy.
Given that the Chilean quake has a magnitude of 8.5 and the Taiwan earthquake has a magnitude of 7.6, we can calculate the difference in energy release as follows:
Difference in Richter magnitude = 8.5 - 7.6 = 0.9
Since each unit increase in Richter magnitude corresponds to a 32-fold increase in energy release, we can raise 32 to the power of 0.9 to determine the ratio of energy release between the two earthquakes.
Energy ratio = 32 ^ 0.9
Using a scientific calculator or a search engine, we can calculate this value:
Energy ratio ≈ 19.261
This means that the Chilean quake released approximately 19.261 times more energy than the Taiwan earthquake.
None of the given options mention this specific value, so it appears that none of the provided choices are correct.