The seismic waves in a 5.5 magnitude earthquake are __ times larger than those in a 35 magnitude earthquake. A. 10 B. 1,000 C. 32 D. 100

## Step 1<br />The problem involves understanding the Richter scale, which is a logarithmic scale used to measure the intensity of earthquakes. The Richter scale is a base-10 logarithmic scale, which means that each whole number increase on the scale corresponds to a tenfold increase in the amplitude of the seismic waves.<br /><br />## Step 2<br />The problem asks us to find out how many times larger the seismic waves in a 5.5 magnitude earthquake are compared to those in a 3.5 magnitude earthquake.<br /><br />## Step 3<br />To solve this, we need to calculate the difference in magnitude between the two earthquakes. The difference is \(5.5 - 3.5 = 2\).<br /><br />## Step 4<br />Since the Richter scale is a base-10 logarithmic scale, each whole number increase corresponds to a tenfold increase in the amplitude of the seismic waves. Therefore, a difference of 2 on the Richter scale corresponds to a \(10^2 = 100\) times increase in the amplitude of the seismic waves.