Gutenberg-Richter law

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In seismology, the Gutenberg-Richter law states that the number of earthquakes per year of Richter magnitude M statistically has the form

Number of earthquakes of size M per year ~ exp(a − bM).

where exp is the exponential function. The law was first proposed by Charles Francis Richter and Beno Gutenberg. The size of the constant b is believed to be about 1. Modern attempts to understand the law involve theories of self-organized criticality.

The same name is sometimes given to the law that the Richter magnitude of an earthquake is proportional to the log of the seismic energy produced by it.