International Monitoring System Correlation Detection at the North Korean Nuclear Test Site at Punggye-ri with Insights from the Source Physics Experiment

Ford, Sean R.; Walter, William R.

doi:10.1785/0220150029

Title: International Monitoring System Correlation Detection at the North Korean Nuclear Test Site at Punggye-ri with Insights from the Source Physics Experiment

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Abstract

Seismic waveform correlation offers the prospect of greatly reducing event detection thresholds when compared with more conventional processing methods. Correlation is applicable for seismic events that in some sense repeat, that is they have very similar waveforms. A number of recent studies have shown that correlated seismic signals may form a significant fraction of seismicity at regional distances. For the particular case of multiple nuclear explosions at the same test site, regional distance correlation also allows very precise relative location measurements and could offer the potential to lower thresholds when multiple events exist. Using the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) International Monitoring System (IMS) seismic array at Matsushiro, Japan (MJAR), Gibbons and Ringdal (2012) were able to create a multichannel correlation detector with a very low false alarm rate and a threshold below magnitude 3.0. They did this using the 2006 or 2009 Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) nuclear explosion as a template to search through a data stream from the same station to find a match via waveform correlation. In this paper, we extend the work of Gibbons and Ringdal (2012) and measure the correlation detection threshold at several other IMS arrays. We use this to address three mainmore »« less

Authors:

Ford, Sean R. ^[1]; Walter, William R. ^[1]

Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)

Publication Date:: Wed May 06 00:00:00 EDT 2015

Research Org.:: Lawrence Livermore National Lab. (LLNL), Livermore, CA (United States)

Sponsoring Org.:: USDOE

OSTI Identifier:: 1251073

Report Number(s):: LLNL-JRNL-666138
Journal ID: ISSN 0895-0695

Grant/Contract Number:: AC52-07NA27344

Resource Type:: Accepted Manuscript

Journal Name:: Seismological Research Letters

Additional Journal Information:: Journal Volume: 86; Journal Issue: 4; Journal ID: ISSN 0895-0695

Publisher:: Seismological Society of America

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

Subject:: 58 GEOSCIENCES; 71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS; 22 GENERAL STUDIES OF NUCLEAR REACTORS

Citation Formats


                    Ford, Sean R., and Walter, William R. International Monitoring System Correlation Detection at the North Korean Nuclear Test Site at Punggye-ri with Insights from the Source Physics Experiment.  United States: N. p., 2015. 
Web.  doi:10.1785/0220150029.

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                    Ford, Sean R., & Walter, William R. International Monitoring System Correlation Detection at the North Korean Nuclear Test Site at Punggye-ri with Insights from the Source Physics Experiment.  United States.  https://doi.org/10.1785/0220150029

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                    Ford, Sean R., and Walter, William R. Wed .  
"International Monitoring System Correlation Detection at the North Korean Nuclear Test Site at Punggye-ri with Insights from the Source Physics Experiment".  United States.  https://doi.org/10.1785/0220150029.  https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1251073.

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@article{osti_1251073,

  title        = {International Monitoring System Correlation Detection at the North Korean Nuclear Test Site at Punggye-ri with Insights from the Source Physics Experiment},

  author       = {Ford, Sean R. and Walter, William R.},

  abstractNote = {Seismic waveform correlation offers the prospect of greatly reducing event detection thresholds when compared with more conventional processing methods. Correlation is applicable for seismic events that in some sense repeat, that is they have very similar waveforms. A number of recent studies have shown that correlated seismic signals may form a significant fraction of seismicity at regional distances. For the particular case of multiple nuclear explosions at the same test site, regional distance correlation also allows very precise relative location measurements and could offer the potential to lower thresholds when multiple events exist. Using the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) International Monitoring System (IMS) seismic array at Matsushiro, Japan (MJAR), Gibbons and Ringdal (2012) were able to create a multichannel correlation detector with a very low false alarm rate and a threshold below magnitude 3.0. They did this using the 2006 or 2009 Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) nuclear explosion as a template to search through a data stream from the same station to find a match via waveform correlation. In this paper, we extend the work of Gibbons and Ringdal (2012) and measure the correlation detection threshold at several other IMS arrays. We use this to address three main points. First, we show the IMS array station at Mina, Nevada (NVAR), which is closest to the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS), is able to detect a chemical explosion that is well under 1 ton with the right template. Second, we examine the two IMS arrays closest to the North Korean (DPRK) test site (at Ussuriysk, Russian Federation [USRK] and Wonju, Republic of Korea [KSRS]) to show that similarly low thresholds are possible when the right templates exist. We also extend the work of Schaff et al. (2012) and measure the correlation detection threshold at the nearest Global Seismic Network (GSN) three-component station (MDJ) at Mudanjiang, Heilongjiang Province, China, from the New China Digital Seismograph Network (IC). To conclude, we use these results to explore the recent claim by Zhang and Wen (2015) that the DPRK conducted “…a low-yield nuclear test…” on 12 May 2010.},

  doi          = {10.1785/0220150029},

  journal      = {Seismological Research Letters},

  number       = 4,

  volume       = 86,

  place        = {United States},

  year         = {Wed May 06 00:00:00 EDT 2015},

  month        = {Wed May 06 00:00:00 EDT 2015}

}

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