Political Seismology or Seismological Politics: Natural Resources Defense Council-USSR Experiments in Underground Nuclear Test Verification

Amramina, A.

doi:10.1785/0220140183

Seismological Research Letters

2015

DOI: 10.1785/0220140183

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Political Seismology or Seismological Politics: Natural Resources Defense Council-USSR Experiments in Underground Nuclear Test Verification

A. Amramina

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Cited by 3 publications

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“…There is almost no literature on the history of Soviet seismology during the cold war that would have a discussion of Soviet seismologists’ involvement in the development of the atomic bomb. Few exceptions include Amramina (2015), which discusses the nuclear test verification experiments in the 1980s, and Vasiliev (2003), which provides an exceptionally candid glimpse into the link between seismology and nuclear weapons, written by a well-informed insider. Grigorii Gamburtsev’s papers (kept in the Gamburtsev family archive) are the major source for the relevant discussion in this paper.…”

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Citizen Seismology, Stalinist Science, and Vladimir Mannar’s Cold Wars

Aronova

2017

Science, Technology, & Human Values

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This essay takes a historical view on “citizen science” by exploring its socialist version via the case of a Soviet amateur seismologist Vladimir Mannar. In the wake of the 1948 Ashgabat earthquake, which coincided with Lysenko’s victory in his campaign against genetics, Mannar launched an aborted campaign for a participatory “socialist seismology.” Mannar co-opted Lysenkoist language of science for the people and gained professional status within professional seismology but was shut out by the experts capitalizing on a “big science” imperative of cold war. Mannar’s personal experiences of navigating competing pulls of cold war seismology and his vision of “people’s seismology,” marginalized within increasingly technical and instrumental cold war science, shed light on oxymoronic nature of citizen science, and the clash between participatory vision of science and an increasing reliance on high-level technical expertise. This case provides a vantage point from which to examine the dual nature of citizen science with its dual loyalties, ambiguities, and the constantly renegotiated status of data—the raison d’être and the most tangible outcome of the initiatives unfolded on the outer fringes of academic science.

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Citizen Seismology, Stalinist Science, and Vladimir Mannar’s Cold Wars

Aronova

2017

Science, Technology, & Human Values

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Geophysical Datascapes of the Cold War: Politics and Practices of the World Data Centers in the 1950s and 1960s

Aronova¹

2017

Osiris

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The seismograph as a diplomatic object: The S oviet– A merican exchange of instruments, 1958–1964

2021

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Scientists from both sides of the Iron Curtain met in Geneva in 1958 and 1959 to create the technical basis for monitoring a future nuclear test ban treaty. Despite their scientific veneer, these meetings were politically motivated and the scientists tried to forward U.S. or Soviet objectives through their technical discussions. Seismographic data was a cornerstone of the proposed monitoring regime, but when the discussions became political, so too did the instruments that produced the scientific data. Thus, seismographs became diplomatic objects used to support or challenge foreign policy objectives. After the collapse of the scientific meetings, the US distributed seismographs as diplomatic gifts to create a worldwide, U.S.‐controlled nuclear‐detection network in 1960. To exploit data from the network without supporting U.S. policy objectives, the USSR in 1961 proposed to exchange U.S. seismographs for Soviet ones, as two objects of equal value. That allowed each superpower to access the other's technology without creating bonds of mutual obligations. However, this type of inverted, object‐based diplomacy also gave scientists from international scientific organisations or small, non‐nuclear nations like Denmark a way to engage in nuclear diplomacy. When Danish scientists offered to create a connection station between the U.S. and Soviet seismic networks, they did so in full agreement with the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in order to strengthen their policy of nuclear disarmament independently of U.S. objectives.

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Political Seismology or Seismological Politics: Natural Resources Defense Council-USSR Experiments in Underground Nuclear Test Verification

Cited by 3 publications

References 10 publications

Citizen Seismology, Stalinist Science, and Vladimir Mannar’s Cold Wars

Citizen Seismology, Stalinist Science, and Vladimir Mannar’s Cold Wars

Geophysical Datascapes of the Cold War: Politics and Practices of the World Data Centers in the 1950s and 1960s

The seismograph as a diplomatic object: The S oviet– A merican exchange of instruments, 1958–1964

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