About 55 earthquakes a day – 20,000 a year – are recorded by the National Earthquake Information Center. Most are tiny and barely noticed by people living where they happen. But some are strong enough ...

The initial magnitude scale was established by Greek astronomer Hipparchus around 135 B.C.E., categorizing approximately 850 stars into six ranges from 1st (brightest) to 6th (faintest) magnitude.

Sept 12 (Reuters) - A powerful quake measuring 7.9 struck near Indonesia's Sumatra island on Wednesday triggering tsunami warnings in Indonesia, Malaysia, India and Sri Lanka, officials said.

Monday afternoon, a 5.8 earthquake centered 15 miles northeast of Yerington hit just after 3 p.m., rattling windows and nerves as far away as Sacramento and San Francisco. Aftershocks continued to be ...

AUSTIN (KXAN) — Since the 1890s, the invention of the seismograph has given scientists an understanding of the intensity and magnitude of earthquakes. In 1935, Charles Richter developed the Richter ...

Earthquakes account for some of the costliest natural disasters in history. They can literally reshape the planet. But how powerful can they get? That's a question humans have only recently been able ...