Characteristics of infrasound signals from North Korean underground nuclear explosions on 2016 January 6 and September 9

Park, Junghyun; Che, Il‐Young; Stump, Brian W.; Hayward, Chris; Dannemann, Fransiska K.; Jeong, SeongJu; Kwong, K. B.; McComas, Sarah; Oldham, H. R.; Scales, M. M.; Wright, Vashan

doi:10.1093/gji/ggy252

Cited by 18 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 44 publications

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“…Infrasound signals are also generated by strong underground or underwater sources when the generated waves couple into the atmosphere. The North Korean tests between 2006 and 2016 were investigated and registered by various infrasound arrays (Che et al, 2014;Assink et al, 2016;Park et al, 2018;Koch and Pilger, 2018). Detections of the 2013 test by the IMS stations I30JP in Japan and I45RU in Russia were part of the REB and thus confirmed the underground nuclear test as a source of infrasound waves.…”

Section: Infrasound Observationsmentioning

confidence: 95%

A multi-technology analysis of the 2017 North Korean nuclear test

et al. 2019

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Abstract. On 3 September 2017 official channels of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea announced the successful test of a thermonuclear device. Only seconds to minutes after the alleged nuclear explosion at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site in the mountainous region in the country's northeast at 03:30:02 (UTC), hundreds of seismic stations distributed all around the globe picked up strong and distinct signals associated with an explosion. Different seismological agencies reported body wave magnitudes of well above 6.0, consequently estimating the explosive yield of the device on the order of hundreds of kT TNT equivalent. The 2017 event can therefore be assessed as being multiple times larger in energy than the two preceding North Korean events in January and September 2016. This study provides a multi-technology analysis of the 2017 North Korean event and its aftermath using a wide array of geophysical methods. Seismological investigations locate the event within the test site at a depth of approximately 0.6 km below the surface. The radiation and generation of P- and S-wave energy in the source region are significantly influenced by the topography of the Mt. Mantap massif. Inversions for the full moment tensor of the main event reveal a dominant isotropic component accompanied by significant amounts of double couple and compensated linear vector dipole terms, confirming the explosive character of the event. The analysis of the source mechanism of an aftershock that occurred around 8 min after the test in the direct vicinity suggest a cavity collapse. Measurements at seismic stations of the International Monitoring System result in a body wave magnitude of 6.2, which translates to an yield estimate of around 400 kT TNT equivalent. The explosive yield is possibly overestimated, since topography and depth phases both tend to enhance the peak amplitudes of teleseismic P waves. Interferometric synthetic aperture radar analysis using data from the ALOS-2 satellite reveal strong surface deformations in the epicenter region. Additional multispectral optical data from the Pleiades satellite show clear landslide activity at the test site. The strong surface deformations generated large acoustic pressure peaks, which were observed as infrasound signals with distinctive waveforms even at distances of 401 km. In the aftermath of the 2017 event, atmospheric traces of the fission product 133Xe were detected at various locations in the wider region. While for 133Xe measurements in September 2017, the Punggye-ri test site is disfavored as a source by means of atmospheric transport modeling, detections in October 2017 at the International Monitoring System station RN58 in Russia indicate a potential delayed leakage of 133Xe at the test site from the 2017 North Korean nuclear test.

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Section: Infrasound Observationsmentioning

confidence: 95%

A multi-technology analysis of the 2017 North Korean nuclear test

et al. 2019

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“…In addition to empirical study, physics‐based modeling seems to be needed to understand the acoustic source mechanism for buried explosions. Unlike surface or above‐surface explosions, the direct acoustic source for buried explosions is considered to be the epicentral ground motion which might include linear and nonlinear deformation (Park, Che, et al, ). Jones et al () and Arrowsmith et al () showed that epicentral infrasound signals were predicted well by the ground motions induced by buried explosions and earthquakes.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The FSE and SPE events serve as prime examples of data fusion from multiple data streams. While the method is here applied at local and near‐regional distances, assuming good signal‐to‐noise ratio, the method can be applied to events at longer regional distances where the seismic signals will include phases traveling in the upper mantle, and the acoustic signals will be infrasound signals (Park, Che, et al, ). The acoustic inversion technique in this study can be applied to regional infrasound, but atmospheric propagation effects must be properly elucidated for accurate source parameter inversion.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seismoacoustic Analysis of Chemical Explosions at the Nevada National Security Site

Pasyanos

Kim

2019

JGR Solid Earth

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In recent years, two sets of chemical explosions have been conducted at the Nevada National Security Site: six explosions from Phase I of the Source Physics Experiment and four explosions from the Forensics Surface Events. We have estimated the explosive yield and depth-of-burial/height-of-burst of both from the synthesis of seismic and low-frequency acoustic data. Analysis of the seismic signal is performed using a waveform envelope technique. Using seismic data only, however, there is a trade-off between the yield and depth or height of the explosion, which becomes especially acute for near-surface events. This trade-off between yield and depth/height can be broken by including complementary analysis of the acoustic signal using the acoustic waveform inversion method. The acoustic signal also has a strong trade-off between a yield and depth/height, but the slope is opposite that of the seismic for near-surface events. We use a likelihood function to combine the seismic and acoustic analysis and improve our estimates of yield and depth/height for these sets of explosions. The results are generally consistent with the known parameters, but can be improved upon by higher-frequency seismic analysis and improved acoustic impulse scaling for large-scaled depths-of-burial. These events serve as prime examples of data fusion from multiple data streams. The challenge will be to apply the method to events at longer regional distances where the seismic signals will include phases traveling in the upper mantle, and the acoustic signals will be recorded as infrasound signals, which are subject to atmospheric variability.Plain Language Summary We combine seismic waves traveling in the solid Earth with acoustic waves traveling in the air to estimate the explosive yield of a series of chemical explosions conducted in Nevada. We find that combining the two data sets significantly improves on the analysis performed with either seismic waves or acoustic waves alone.

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“…(2) A reduced value of the isotropic part obtained by MTI because a larger amount of S-wave energy is generated in the source region due to topography effects above the source (see Subsection 2.3). 3 were investigated and registered by various infrasound arrays (Che et al, 2014;Assink et al, 2016;Park et al, 2018;Koch and Pilger, 2018 Assink et al, 2018). Clear waveforms undoubtedly associated to the nuclear test were recorded and were again part of the REB.…”

Section: Figure 10mentioning

confidence: 99%

A Multi-Technology Analysis of the 2017 North Korean Nuclear Test

Gaebler¹,

Ceranna²

2018

Preprint

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Abstract. On September 3rd 2017 official channels of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea announced the successful test of a thermonuclear device. Only seconds to minutes after the alleged nuclear explosion at the Punggye-ri nuclear test site in the mountainous region in the country's northeast at 03:30:02 (UTC) hundreds of seismic stations distributed all around the globe picked up strong and distinct signals associated with an explosion. Different seismological agencies reported body wave magnitudes of well above 6.0, consequently estimating the explosive yield of the device in the order of hundreds of kilotons TNT equivalent. The 2017 event can therefore be assessed being multiple times larger in energy than the two preceding events in January and September 2016. This study provides a multi-technology analysis of the 2017 North Korean event and its aftermath using a wide array of geophysical methods. Seismological investigations locate the event within the test site at a depth of approximately 0.8 km below surface. The radiation and generation of P- and S-wave energy in the source region is significantly influenced by the topography of the Mt. Mantap massif. Inversions for the full moment tensor of the main event reveal a dominant isotropic component accompanied by significant amounts of double couple and compensated linear vector dipole terms, confirming the explosive character of the event. Analysis of the source mechanism of an aftershock that occurred around eight minutes after the test in the direct vicinity suggest a cavity collapse. Measurements at seismic stations of the International Monitoring System result in a body wave magnitude of 6.2, which translates to an yield estimate of around 400 kilotons TNT equivalent. The explosive yield is possibly overestimated, since topography and depth phases both tend to ehance the peak amplitudes of teleseismic P-waves. Interferometric Synthetic-Aperture-Radar analysis using data from the ALOS-2 satellite reveal strong surface deformations in the epicenter region. Additional multispectral optical data from the Pleiades satellite show clear landslide activity at the test site. The strong surface deformations generated large acoustic pressure peaks, which were observed as infrasound signals with distinctive waveforms even in distances of 400 km. In the aftermath of the 2017 event atmospheric traces of the fission product 133Xe have been detected at various locations in the wider region. While for 133Xe measurements in September 2017 the Punggye-ri test site is disfavored as source by means of atmospheric transport modeling, detections in October 2017 at the International Monitoring System station RN58 in Russia indicate a potential delayed leakage of 133Xe at the test site from the 2017 North Korean nuclear test.

show abstract

Characteristics of infrasound signals from North Korean underground nuclear explosions on 2016 January 6 and September 9

Cited by 18 publications

References 44 publications

A multi-technology analysis of the 2017 North Korean nuclear test

A multi-technology analysis of the 2017 North Korean nuclear test

Seismoacoustic Analysis of Chemical Explosions at the Nevada National Security Site

A Multi-Technology Analysis of the 2017 North Korean Nuclear Test

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