James is researching earthquakes for a science report. He is trying to come up with his own scale to rank the intensity of an earthquake. He notices that the difference in the intensity of the smallest earthquake, x, and the largest earthquake, y, is a magnitude of several hundred thousand. James comes up with a scale that allows him to show these differences and is easy to use and interpret.

Which of the following functions would best model the situation above?
polynomial
longarithmic
step
absolute value