Solved cryptogram
Each whole step up an earthquake scale means a shaking about ten times as large as the last.
Earth Science Facts, sourced to U.S. Geological Survey.
What it means
The scale is logarithmic, so the numbers are much further apart than they look. A step of one multiplies the ground motion tenfold and the energy released by roughly thirty two times. That is why a magnitude six and a magnitude eight are not neighbors on a list of similar events: the second releases about a thousand times the energy of the first.
The claim comes from U.S. Geological Survey, and the page it comes from was read on 2026-08-27 to confirm it still says this.
This is not the kind of claim that goes out of date, which is why it was set as a puzzle rather than a fact with a shelf life.
Solve it yourself
This fact is a cryptogram here: 74 letters over 19 different ones, graded medium.
- SourceU.S. Geological Survey
- CollectionEarth Science Facts
- Difficultymedium
- Length74 letters, 19 of them different
Nearby in the collection
The facts either side of this one.
- U.S. Geological Surveymedium, 71 letters
- U.S. Geological Surveymedium, 76 letters
- U.S. Geological Surveymedium, 78 letters
- U.S. Geological Surveyhard, 78 letters
About as hard as this one
Scored closest to it by the model behind our guide to solving cryptograms.
- Royal Society of Chemistrymedium, 75 letters
- U.S. Geological Surveymedium, 79 letters
- NOAAmedium, 75 letters
- Royal Society of Chemistrymedium, 72 letters