Yield estimates of nevada test site explosions obtained from seismic Lg waves

Abstract

A methodology is presented for determining the yield of underground nuclear explosions from Lg wave amplitudes. The methodology is applied to Nevada Test Site (NTS) explosions, for which the data from short‐period, vertical component analog seismographs at three stations are used to develop calibration curves for unsaturated material and water‐saturated rock source conditions. The latter curves are found to provide reasonably accurate estimates of the yields of explosions in other areas of the United States and in the French Sahara, suggesting that they may be applicable to all continental areas. If so, they also can provide an estimate of the bias of mb(P) magnitudes between different continental sites. For example, the Lg data from NTS explosions indicate a 0.31±0.02 magnitude unit bias between NTS and eastern North America, similar to the approximately 0.33 unit bias found between western and eastern North America previously by use of earthquake data.

Very High Performance Organic Photonic Devices

“…For example, it has been observed that Lg amplitude level correlates remarkably well with the known yields of underground explosions over broad source regions, and this fact seems difficult to reconcile with the Rg scattering hypothesis. Moreover, both of these proposed sources would predict a pronounced dependence of Lg excitation on source depth, and this seems inconsistent with the results of Nuttli (1986) and others who have obtained reliable Lg-based yield estimates for very deep explosions, including the U.S. Peaceful Nuclear Explosion (PNE) RULISON which was detonated at a scaled depth more than six times larger than the nominal Nevada Test Site (NTS) containment depth.…”

An Automatic Method for Determination of Lg Arrival Times Using Wavelet Transforms

“…Also, 1 sec period Lg waves were used by Nuttli (1986) for estimating seismic magnitudes because their anelastic attenuation is small in shield and other geologically stable regions.…”

Regional spectral scaling relations of source parameters for earthquakes in the Baltic Shield

“…where R is distance and y is the coefficient of anelastic attenuation, which, in its turn, is related to the quality factor, Q (Nuttli, 1986):…”