The relation between intensity and magnitude for Italian earthquakes

Abstract

This paper describes the problems concerning the relation between intensity and magnitude, which are substantially different quantities by nature. In consideration of the necessity “to translate” magnitude values into intensity values, andvice versa, to find magnitude values for historical earthquakes, we have searched for a correspondence that may exist between intensity and magnitude, hypothesising that magnitude values were distributed as a known function. Therefore, we have analysed two distribution functions, first the Gaussian distribution, then a box function, of which the goodness of fit has been estimated by the χ2 test. In conclusion, the probability distribution of magnitude vs intensity seems better described by a Gaussian curve.