Richter scale is used to ?

Hint:The Richter scale was developed in \[1935\] by American seismologists Charles F. Richter and Beno Gutenberg as a quantitative measure of an earthquake's magnitude (size). The logarithm of the amplitude (height) of the largest seismic wave measured to a scale by a seismograph is used to calculate the magnitude of the earthquake.

Complete answer:
The Richter scale was originally designed to equate the size of earthquakes of moderate magnitude (that is, magnitude \[3\] to magnitude\[\;7\]) by assigning a number to each one. The scale was created for earthquakes that occurred in southern California and were reported using the Wood-Anderson seismograph, with epicentres less than \[600\] kilometres (\[373\]miles) from the seismograph's site.

Current seismographs, on the other hand, can be modified to calculate Richter magnitudes, and modern methods for measuring earthquake magnitude have been developed to produce results that are comparable to those obtained using the Richter scale. The smallest earthquakes observable at the time were given values close to zero on the original Richter scale on the seismograph of the time.

Since modern seismographs can detect seismic waves much smaller than those originally designated as zero magnitude, earthquakes with negative Richter magnitudes can be measured. A \[10\]-fold increase in the magnitude of an earthquake is represented by each increase of one unit on the scale. In other words, the Richter scale's numbers are proportional to the maximum wave amplitudes' typical (base\[10\]) logarithms.

Each unit increase also reflects the release of approximately \[\;31\] times more energy than the previous whole number on the scale. An earthquake with a magnitude of \[5.0\] releases \[31\] times the energy of one with a magnitude of \[4.0\]. While the Richter scale has no upper limit in principle, no earthquake has ever been reported on the scale with a magnitude greater than \[8.6\]in reality. That was the Richter scale for the \[1960\] Chile earthquake. The magnitude of this occurrence was estimated to be \[9.5\].

Note:Richter's initial approach has been shown to be inaccurate for earthquakes with a magnitude of \[6.5\]or greater. The use of a specific form of seismograph and the presence of a local earthquake are both needed for magnitude calculations. Furthermore, the Richter scale could not be used to measure an earthquake's total energy released or to describe the amount of damage it caused.