Policing the peace: How nations will monitor a nuclear test ban
Steve R. Bratt`s belt started chirping as if on cue, precisely as he was boasting about a new global watchdog system for detecting nuclear tests. Bratt, a seismologist with the US Department of Defense, retrieved the beeper from his hip and studied it for a few seconds. {open_quotes}I`ve got an alert. It`s from Lop Nor. Lop Nor is the Chinese test site,{close_quotes} he explained. Two stations in a worldwide network of seismometers had just picked up vibrations emanating from central Asia, near China`s known nuclear facility. The shock was small, about magnitude 3.5. In bomb equivalents, it would correspond to less than a half kiloton explosion. In this case, however, Bratt suspected the alert was just a minor earthquake. Timing provided an important clue: The shock had originated at 12:19 Greenwich Mean Time, which is not the kind of round, on-the-hour time that countries usually choose for performing a major weapon test. Seismic analysts would later confirm Bratt`s hunch when they determined that the Chinese vibrations actually originated at an unlikely place to stage a test, hundreds of kilometers away from the Lop Nor site. The impromptu demonstration nonetheless made a good advertisement for the new international monitoring system-an ever-figilant network of sensors strung around the globe, listening, sniffing, and waiting. This article describes the problems involved in test ban monitoring and the possibilities for solving them.
- Sponsoring Organization:
- USDOE
- OSTI ID:
- 458689
- Journal Information:
- Science News, Vol. 149, Issue 19; Other Information: PBD: 11 May 1996
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Sleuthing for home. [Monitoring nuclear tests]
Modeling propagation effects from explosions in western China and India