Richter or Merkel ?

[Steve Brown]

In the film San Andreas, do we use the Richter scale or the Merkel scale to measure earthquakes?

We should remember this information, after all, Americans don't make films for nothing, films are also an education.

[Quadibloc]

On Wednesday, August 10, 2022 at 11:04:29 PM UTC-6, mail...@gmail.com wrote:
> In the film San Andreas, do we use the Richter scale or the Merkel scale to measure earthquakes?
>
> We should remember this information, after all, Americans don't make films for nothing, films are also an education.

Most people have only heard of the Richter scale. The only thing the name Merkel
suggests is a former German chancellor.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

A Google search turns up no evidence of a Merkel scale for earthquakes even existing.

However, it did produce results referring to a *Mercalli* scale for earthquakes. That name
rang a bell, and indeed, it's a scale based on the observed damage produced by an
earthquake.

John Savard

[Quadibloc]

Specific to your question: I haven't seen the movie. However, the Wikipedia
article on the movie mentions a "7.1 magnitude" and a "9.1 magnitude"
earthquake as being events in the movie. Those numbers are consistent with
the use of the Richter scale.

John Savard

[Steve Brown]

Sorry, it's Mercalli scale, not Merkel.

[bert]

On Monday, 15 August 2022 at 21:33:59 UTC+1, Quadibloc wrote:
> A Google search . . . did produce results referring to a
> *Mercalli* scale for earthquakes . . . it's a scale based

> on the observed damage produced by an earthquake.

What earthly use is a scale based on the strength of the
earthquake and the weaknesses of the local buildings?

[maus]

I should say that I saw building when I was in Syria, and the quality of
the concrete was very poor. There is a lot of salt in the water. Also, a
lot of the buildings were never really finished for tax reasons.

(I have worked in many areas)

--
grey...@mail.com
where is our money gone, Dude?

[D.J.]

From the coverage I saw, no rebar. That the buildings stayed up this
long was astounding.
--
Jim

[maus]

agreed.

I wonder how the citadel in Allepo fared, on of the oldest buildings in
the world. I meant to get back to see it later, never, now I suppose.

[D.J.]

On 1 Apr 2023 18:10:59 GMT, maus <ma...@mail.com> wrote:

>On 2023-04-01, D.J <chuckt...@gmnol.com> wrote:
>> From the coverage I saw, no rebar. That the buildings stayed up this
>> long was astounding.
>
>agreed.
>
>I wonder how the citadel in Allepo fared, on of the oldest buildings in
>the world. I meant to get back to see it later, never, now I suppose.

From various archaeology programs I have watched, many centuries older
buildings do survive earthquakes.
--
Jim

[Vir Campestris]

On 02/04/2023 16:28, D.J. wrote:
> From various archaeology programs I have watched, many centuries older
> buildings do survive earthquakes.

Possibly survivorship bias.

The centuries old buildings we see are those that were built well enough
to survive previous earthquakes. The badly built ones fell over long ago.

Andy

[D.J.]

First time I've heard that term used for buildings. But I have seen
documentaries where centuries older buildings did fall down during
earthquakes.
--
Jim