Earthquakes and seismic activity often happen with sudden movements underground with tectonic plates. Seismographs are used by scientists to measure the time, location and strength of an earthquake.

Earthquake strength is registered on the moment magnitude scale, which measures how much energy was released when the rocks along a fault moved during the quake. By Henry Fountain Earthquake strength ...

What does “moment magnitude” mean, and how do scientists determine the strength of a rupture in the earth? By Henry Fountain Henry Fountain spent a quarter century covering science for The Times. He ...

Often in these weekly Night Sky columns I refer to the magnitude of a star or planet. The concept of magnitude is relatively easy to grasp. Put simply, magnitude indicates an object’s degree of ...

On July 6th, sports fans like me tuned in to the NBA summer league to watch the debut of Zion Williamson and R.J. Barrett, two highly anticipated rookies. I never expected the ESPN commentators to do ...

The earthquake that rattled Californians on Friday night measured a 7.1 magnitude, which doesn’t sound much worse than the 6.4-magnitude quake that struck a day earlier. But it was. The small ...

Measuring earthquakes is no easy task, given they strike suddenly and sometimes at global scale. When the Earth’s crust shifts abruptly, an earthquake occurs, with energy radiated out as seismic waves ...