CompuServe Messages

Thanks for that very clear explanation. I've since learned that the Japanese use their own local scale for preliminary measurements. Under that scale, the Kobe quake was 7.2, but under the moment magnitude scale it was 6.9, according to Bill Ellsworth at the USGS in Menlo Park, CA. He says in a quake that big, the difference between a 6.9 and a 7.2 is "whimsical."