Electrical transients were recorded from eleven underground nuclear explosions at the Nevada Test Site and from one near Carlsbad, New Mexico. The electric field components are only a few microvolts per meter at distances less than 10 km from the shot point, and they generally decay approximately as the inverse cube of distance. Magnitudes are proportional to about the 0.4 power of yield. Two source mechanisms are considered: the formation of an elementary magnetic dipole by the conductive plasma expanding in the earth's magnetic field and the formation of an elementary electric dipole by radial asymmetry in the generation and absorption of • rays. The data accordingly were interpreted in terms of equivalent buried dipole sources.
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