New Madrid quake. On December 16,1811,
an earthquake occurred near New Madrid, Missouri, that temporarily reversed the course of the Mississippi River. The quake had a magnitude of 8.8.
On October 17,1989,
a calamitous quake measuring 7.1
on the Richter scale occurred in San Francisco during a World Series baseball game on live TV. How many times as intense as the San Francisco quake was the New Madrid quake?
The Richter scale is logarithmic, which means that an increase of one whole number represents a ten-fold increase in intensity. To compare the intensities of the New Madrid and San Francisco earthquakes, we can use the formula:
Intensity_Factor = 10^(Magnitude_1 - Magnitude_2)
Using the magnitudes of 8.8 for the New Madrid quake and 7.1 for the San Francisco quake:
Intensity_Factor = 10^(8.8 - 7.1) = 10^1.7 ≈ 50.12
So, the New Madrid earthquake was about 50 times as intense as the San Francisco earthquake.