The Medvedev–Sponheuer–Karnik scale, also known as the MSK or MSK-64, is a macroseismic intensity scale used to evaluate the severity of ground shaking on the basis of observed effects in an area where an

earthquake An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they ...

transpires. The scale was first proposed by Sergei Medvedev (

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

), Wilhelm Sponheuer (

East Germany East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on ...

), and Vít Kárník (

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

) in 1964. It was based on the experiences being available in the early 1960s from the application of the Modified Mercalli intensity scale and the 1953 version of the Medvedev scale, known also as the GEOFIAN scale. With minor modifications in the mid-1970s and early 1980s, the MSK scale became widely used in

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and the

. In early 1990s, the European Seismological Commission (ESC) used many of the principles formulated in the MSK in the development of the European macroseismic scale, which is now a '' de facto'' standard for evaluation of seismic intensity in European countries. MSK-64 is still being used in

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, and throughout the

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Medvedev–Sponheuer–Karnik scale

The Medvedev–Sponheuer–Karnik scale is somewhat similar to the Modified Mercalli (MM) scale used in the United States. The MSK scale has 12 intensity degrees expressed in

Roman numerals Roman numerals are a numeral system that originated in ancient Rome and remained the usual way of writing numbers throughout Europe well into the Late Middle Ages. Numbers are written with combinations of letters from the Latin alphabet, eac ...

(to prevent the use of decimals):

References

External links

MSK-64-based seismic intensity maps of Russia
{{DEFAULTSORT:Medvedev-Sponheuer-Karnik scale Seismic intensity scales Science and technology in the Soviet Union