Seismic Energy:
Both the magnitude and the seismic moment are related to the amount of energy that is radiated by an earthquake. Richter, working with Dr. Beno Gutenberg, early on developed a relationship between magnitude and energy. Their relationship is:
logES = 11.8 + 1.5M
giving the energy ES in ergs from the magnitude M. Note that ES is not the total ``intrinsic'' energy of the earthquake, transferred from sources such as gravitational energy or to sinks such as heat energy. It is only the amount radiated from the earthquake as seismic waves, which ought to be a small fraction of the total energy transfered during the earthquake process.