Seismological evasion: The use of the short period coda of an earthquake to hide an underground nuclear explosion

Technical Report · Tue Dec 31 04:00:00 EST 1985

OSTI ID:6484273

This report deals with the seismological aspects of the evasion technique referred to as the ''hide in earthquake'' scenario; that is, a test explosion is detonated following a large earthquake, and the explosion P waves are hidden in the P wave coda of the earthquake. We consider the evader to be successful if he detonates an event such that the probability of detection of the signals at three or more stations of the monitoring network is less than 0.1 (10% chance), while the monitor is considered successful if there is a 0.9 probability of three or more of his stations recording the event. A signal to coda ratio of greater than 1 is considered tantamount to detection. Because at some monitoring stations the explosion P-wave signal can arrive late in the decaying coda of the earthquake, the evader needs to limit the seismic magnitude of the explosion to a value considerably less than that of the earthquake. We first consider the necessary reduction magnitude that is implied by average behavior of explosion signals and earthquake codas, and then consider the further reduction necessary to adjust for possible undesirable fluctuations in their behavior. That is, we consider the adjustments necessary to account for various uncertainties as to actual behavior, as opposed to estimates based on average behavior. 47 refs., 40 figs., 2 tabs.

• Research Organization: R and D Associates, Arlington, VA (USA); Rondout Associates, Inc., Stone Ridge, NY (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: AC01-82DP50007
• OSTI ID: 6484273
• Report Number(s): RDA-TR-138511-001; ON: DE89005763
• 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
58 GEOSCIENCES
580201* -- Geophysics-- Seismology & Tectonics-- (1980-1989)
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
DETECTION
EARTHQUAKES
EVALUATION
EXPLOSIONS
MEASURING INSTRUMENTS
NUCLEAR EXPLOSION DETECTION
NUCLEAR EXPLOSIONS
P WAVES
PARTIAL WAVES
SEISMIC ARRAYS
SEISMIC DETECTION
SEISMIC DETECTORS
SEISMIC EVENTS
SEISMOLOGY
SENSITIVITY