An Explosion Aftershock Model with Application to On-Site Inspection

Abstract

An estimate of aftershock activity due to a theoretical underground nuclear explosion is produced using an aftershock rate model. The model is developed with data from the Nevada National Security Site, formerly known as the Nevada Test Site, and the Semipalatinsk Test Site, which we take to represent soft-rock and hard-rock testing environments, respectively. Estimates of expected magnitude and number of aftershocks are calculated using the models for different testing and inspection scenarios. These estimates can help inform the Seismic Aftershock Monitoring System (SAMS) deployment in a potential Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty On-Site Inspection (OSI), by giving the OSI team a probabilistic assessment of potential aftershocks in the Inspection Area (IA). The aftershock assessment, combined with an estimate of the background seismicity in the IA and an empirically derived map of threshold magnitude for the SAMS network, could aid the OSI team in reporting. We apply the hard-rock model to a M5 event and combine it with the very sensitive detection threshold for OSI sensors to show that tens of events per day are expected up to a month after an explosion measured several kilometers away.

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