The USGS’s Other Earthquake Measurement

By Alan Gionet
GOLDEN, Colo. (CBS4)– It’s a complicated formula for calculating the severity of earthquakes. But we get it… kind of. Still, it has generally served us well: 5.4, 6.2, 8.0, 9.1. You get the point.
“Magnitude is not a good predictor of damage,” said the USGS’s scientist in charge, Dr. Harley Benz.
But the media continues to pass along numbers from the USGS variation of the Richter scale called the “Moment Magnitude Scale” to convey a