Richter magnitudes and site corrections using vertical component seismograms

The definition of the Richter Ml magnitude scale is in terms of seismic wave horizontal components recorded on Wood‐Anderson seismographs. However, at many seismograph sites only the vertical component is available, and at sedimentary sites horizontal components are usually significantly amplified, causing complications in the assignment of a magnitude to an earthquake. Because each earthquake can be recorded at a different subset of sites, each subset having a different combination of site amplifications, the assignment of a magnitude is dependent upon the seismograph site combination that records a particular earthquake. Although there is some amplification of the vertical component at sedimentary foundation sites, it is shown that a reduced spread of values of Ml magnitude, consistent with low amplification (bedrock) site magnitudes, can be achieved using the vertical component to compute the magnitude and adding 0.2 to adjust to the Ml magnitude scale (defined in terms of the horizontal components). This presupposes that the sites used by Richter were on bedrock; however, even if this is incorrect, it appears to be a necessary precondition for the world‐wide unification of the Richter scale along with defining the true gain of Wood‐Anderson seismographs rather than accepting the design gain of 2800. Site corrections would be smaller than those established using the horizontal components. Taking into account the use of only the vertical component in the calculation of Ml and including the 0.2 adjustment to the equivalent horizontal component derived magnitude, the expression for the calculation of magnitudes in the Victoria region becomes:

Ml = logA_z ‐ logS_z + 0.9 + logR + 0.0056Re^‐0.0013R

where A_z is the equivalent Wood‐Anderson seismograph displacement amplitude, S_z is the site amplification (vertical component) and R is the hypocentral distance.