Definition for View source for Richter magnitude scale

The Richter magnitude scale is a mathematical technique used to quantify the size of earthquakes. Developed in 1935 by Charles Richter in collaboration with Beno Gutenberg, both of the California Institute of Technology, the Richter scale assigns a single number to quantify the size of an earthquake. It is more correctly called the ML Scale (for local magnitude). Richter's local magnitude scale was originally intended to be used only in a particular study area in California, and on seismograms recorded on a particular instrument, the Wood-Anderson torsion seismometer.