General. An energy unit, now defined as 4.184 trillion (1012) Nm (or Joules J). The term originates from an estimate of the energy released by the explosion of a thousand tons of the chemical explosive Trinitrotoluol (TNT). See See Richards (2002)
Peter Bormann, Keiiti Aki, William H. K. Lee, and Johannes Schweitzer (Compilers and Amenders), Glossary of Terms Interest to Earthquake and Engineering Seismologists (Version 1), Publication records from external use of GFZ scientific infrastructure, Germany 2011. http://gfzpublic.gfz-potsdam.de/pubman/item/escido c:56137:3/component/escidoc:56143/Glossary_rev1.pd f, (ND/ Erthq - Amer) {980}