How many seismographs to find epicenter

Where these three circles intersect is the epicenter. This material is also available as a free iBooks textbook and iTunes U course.

Search-Icon Created with Sketch. KQED is a proud member of. Always free. Sign In. Magnitude is a measure of earthquake size and remains unchanged with distance from the earthquake.

Intensity, however, describes the degree of shaking caused by an earthquake at a given place and decreases with distance from the earthquake epicentre. At the epicenter, the strongest shaking occurs during an earthquake. Intensity X 10 is the highest value on the MMI. Modified Mercalli Intensity Scale. Begin typing your search term above and press enter to search.

Press ESC to cancel. Skip to content Home Social studies How many seismic stations are needed to locate the epicenter of an earthquake? Social studies. Ben Davis January 19, How many seismic stations are needed to locate the epicenter of an earthquake? Why do you need at least 3 seismic stations to find the epicenter of the quake?

Figure By looking at the time between the arrivals of the P- and S-waves, one can determine the distance to the earthquake from that station, with longer time intervals indicating longer distance. These distances are determined using a travel-time curve, which is a graph of Pand S-wave arrival times see Figure Though the distance to the epicenter can be determined using a travel-time graph, the direction cannot be told.

A circle with a radius of the distance to the quake can be drawn. The earthquake occurred somewhere along that circle.