Analysis of the effects of tectonic release on short-period P waves observed from Shagan River explosions. Final report, September 1985-September 1986

Technical Report · Sun Feb 01 04:00:00 EST 1987

OSTI ID:5947083

Barker, B W; Murphy, J R

Large samples of teleseismic P-wave amplitude and waveform data recorded from Shagan River underground explosions were collected and systematically analyzed in an attempt to identify any effects which may correlate with the amount of tectonic release accompanying these explosions. Results of these analyses indicate that these teleseismic P-wave data do not provide any unambiguous evidence of effects of tectonic release in the short-period range of interest in m/sub b/ determination. However, the results of a preliminary theoretical analysis indicate that such negative evidence is not definitive in that there are plausible models of tectonic release for which no detectable variations in the observed teleseismic P waveforms are theoretically expected to result from the superposition of these two sources. At the same time, such models of tectonic release predict significant positive bias in the network-averaged m/sub b/ values for explosions accompanied by the mode of tectonic release traditionally associated with the Shagan River test site. Thus, the currently available seismic data do not exclude the possibility that tectonic release may be introducing a positive bias of as much as several tenths of a magnitude unit into the network-averaged m/sub b/ values computed for some Shagan River explositons.

• Research Organization: S-Cubed, San Diego, CA (USA)
• OSTI ID: 5947083
• Report Number(s): AD-A-183828/3/XAB; SSS-R-87-8422
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

45 MILITARY TECHNOLOGY, WEAPONRY, AND NATIONAL DEFENSE
450300* -- Military Technology
Weaponry
& National Defense-- Nuclear Explosion Detection
ASIA
DETECTION
EASTERN EUROPE
EUROPE
EXPLOSIONS
NUCLEAR EXPLOSION DETECTION
SAMPLING
SEISMIC DETECTION
SEISMIC WAVES
SEISMOLOGY
TECTONICS
TEST FACILITIES
TESTING
TREATIES
UNDERGROUND EXPLOSIONS
USSR
VALIDATION