Sumatra quake: up to a 9.3

You aways see those little notes, "this magnitude is provisional and may be adjusted as more data is gathered." Those are true! When Seth Stein and Emile Okal got hold of the long-wave data from the 26 December Sumatra earthquake, they added the ultra-low frequency energy to what was already known. Last month they concluded that the great earthquake had almost three times the power previously thought, giving it a magnitude of 9.3, making it the second-largest earthquake ever recorded (the 23 May 1960 Chile quake being the champ). Their online report is a good example of what I call the clear literature: not yet published, but widely read and accepted among the seismological community, and available to the public.