Effects of shock-induced tensile failure on mb-Ms discrimination: Contrasts between historic nuclear explosions and the North Korean test of 9 October 2006

Rayleigh wave excitation is studied for an explosion source model consisting of a superposition of isotropic (monopole), tensile failure, and tectonic release point sources. The body‐force representation for shock‐induced, deep‐seated tensile failure is a compensated linear vector dipole CLVD, where...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Geophysical research letters 2008-07, Vol.35 (14), p.L14301-n/a
Main Authors: Patton, Howard J., Taylor, Steven R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Earth sciences
Earth, ocean, space
Exact sciences and technology
nuclear test detection
seismic discrimination
Seismic monitoring and test-ban treaty verification
Seismology
surface waves
Surface waves and free oscillations
Theory
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Summary:Rayleigh wave excitation is studied for an explosion source model consisting of a superposition of isotropic (monopole), tensile failure, and tectonic release point sources. The body‐force representation for shock‐induced, deep‐seated tensile failure is a compensated linear vector dipole CLVD, where the relative strength of the CLVD is given by an index K. Rayleigh wave amplitudes are reduced owing to destructive interference between an explosive monopole and a CLVD source with vertical axis of symmetry in extension (K > 1). The effect of tensile failure on Ms is to enhance the explosion‐like characteristics on a plot of mb‐Ms. This model suggests that the success of the mb‐Ms discriminant results from the fact that nuclear tests were conducted under containment practices for which tensile failure is ubiquitous, while the North Korean nuclear test of 9 October 2006 is a harbinger of poor mb‐Ms performance when tensile failure is completely suppressed.
ISSN:0094-8276
1944-8007
DOI:10.1029/2008GL034211