Barometer | 2 May 2019
Great shakes Shale gas commissioner Natascha Engel resigned in protest at what she called ‘absurd’ restrictions on fracking — in particular rules which state that fracking operations must cease. Has anyone ever been harmed by a tremor at magnitude 0.5? — The Richter scale was devised by seismologist Charles F. Richter in 1935. It is a logarithmic scale, each ascending number marking an increase of approximately 31 times the amount of released energy. — The largest recorded earthquake, in Chile in 1960, measured 9.5. A tremor less than 4.0 is unlikely to cause damage and one of 2.0 or below unlikely even to be felt. — A tremor of 1.0 releases
