boom.
Posted on 08/26/2006 1:09:01 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
/begin my translation
N. Korea: A Seismic Event Detected Yesterday Afternoon(2.3 in Richter Scale)
Yesterday at 4:50 pm, there was a seismic event in N. Korea, registering 2.3 in Richter Scale, which prompted authorities to figure out its nature.
According to Korean Meteorological Administration, its source was found to be to the north north west of Yeonchon, Kyunggi Province, and 49km away(approx. 30 miles.) It is at the border area between Hwang-hae Province and Kangwon Province.
After analyzing the seismic wave of the event, Korean Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources reached the conclusion that it could be the result of routine demolition activity by setting off TNT underground
[weather news] Lee Ki-moon
/end my translation
it occurred near Pan-kyo, Kangwon Province, N. Korea,
the magnitude of explosion is equivalent to that of setting off two metric tons of TNT,
such explosions have been frequently detected near Pan-kyo recently.
IMHO, N. Koreans must be constructing an underground installation(a missile base?) inside hard rock formation.
Ping!
bttt
Or a tiny nuke?
They must be firing up the old Stargate.
Missile base, superdeep shelter, something like that.
Nukes also have a distinct and easily identifiable P and S Wave pattern. It's how we know that China and the USSR popped at least one nuke off in their border wars back in the 70s.
Awwww, my tinfoil hat slipped off.
But, you compared a nuke to an earthquake, not a nuke to TNT.
A small earthquake - big deal.
Nukes also have a distinct and easily identifiable P and S Wave pattern. It's how we know that China and the USSR popped at least one nuke off in their border wars back in the 70s.
You said "or a tiny nuke". Just dispelling that.
Manmade conventional explosions are, as the article says, easy to distinguish from natural earthquakes. The big clue is that the energy instantly spikes, rather than ramping or building up to a peak.
Are you saying that China or the USSR set off a hostile, above ground nuclear weapon in the '70s? Do you have a source?
The event wasn't said to be an "earthquake" so exactly what did you wish to dispel?
This is only a test of the FR North Korea nuclear test detection system. If this had been an actual test, please refer to instructions inside your tinfoil hat.
Certainly - The Chinese and the Soviets had sporadic border skirmishes from 1969 until May 1991, when they signed a treaty formalizing the borders and withdrawing troops from the area. This isn't something that's really well known because, well, neither party was real interested in publicizing it when they were attempting to present a united front on Vietnam. The worst of the fighting was 69 to about 75. (Google for Sino-Soviet Border Clashes or Wars.)
Anyway, at the height of the border wars, there were a number of inexplicable seismic events localized to that area that had the unmistakable signature of a nuclear weapon. One of them could have only been a nuclear detonation, the others could have either been nukes or enormous conventional explosive charges. Judging by the size, per experts, the devices were of the tactical nuke class. (There's a couple of books on the subject; titles completely escape me at the moment.) The background radiation count also went up, but other than that, there was no proof that anyone had done anything - no point in announcing it.
The general consensus seems to be that about 5 atomic or nuclear weapons have been used in anger, including ours on Japan.
pflr
NK would not use a nuke in anger, but in glee.
Ditto Iran
TNT. Calibration test?
Yes, and yes, but it's almost 4am, so I'll find them in the morning.
There has been discussion of this on FR before, and others have cited sources as well.
At least ONE? Got any information or a link with ome more information? I'd love to see the seismograph if we had it somewhere.
What .. 2 in Japan and 3 on the Soviet-Sino border wars ?
Wasn't there also an unexplained nuclear detonation underwater in the Indian Ocean right about the time that Taiwan, SouthAfrica and Israel were rumored to be collaborating on a nuke?
Yeah, its been discussed on FR before. At the time, I quoted sources, but it's about 4am and I can't find them now.
Yup. There may have been more, but nobody's talking.
And yes, there was an unexplained subsurface nuclear detonation in the middle of the Indian Ocean on 22 Sep 1979. The South Africans finally claimed it as theirs in 97, then backpedalled. Officially, it's still unclaimed.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/israel/nuke-test.htm
This has been a test of the Iranian/Korean nuclear missile alert system. Had this been an actual alert of a Iranian/Korean missle attack, place your head between your knees and kiss your @ss goodbye (dependant upon where in American you currently reside).
Alert to Iran/Korea - prepare to glow in the dark!
Could they be calibrating their equipment by doing underground explosions?
You beat me by a half hour.
So I'm guessing these were "Small" nukes designed to target troops? Or are there towns and villages in that area that have mysteriously disappeared from the maps?
If the titles or a link to the thread come to mind at some point- would you mind dropping me a ping? I have heard rumors of this- and my Googling on the subject has been less than spectacularly successful. :-)
That's just what they did at Trinity in 1945.
Before Trinity: The 100 Ton TestMay 7, 1945:
To help in preparing the instrumentation for the Trinity shot the "100 Ton Test" was fired on 7 May 1945. This test detonated 108 tons of TNT stacked on a wooden platform 800 yards from Trinity ground zero. The pile of high explosive was threaded with tubes containing 1000 curies of reactor fission products. This is the largest instrumented explosion conducted up to this date. The test allowed the calibration of instruments to measure the blast wave, and gave some indication of how fission products might be distributed by the explosion.
Men stacking crates of TNT for the trial run explosion test.
Both, actually, though not, perhaps related.
First, towns and villages out in the middle of nowhere Siberia used to disappear on a regular basis under the Soviet regime, for various reasons, ranging from plague to famine to KGB relocation/liqudation to getting overrun and destroyed by the Chinese. Sometimes the KGB didn't look into the matter too closely (if they weren't responsible). There's still a whole lot of questions of just what the heck happened out there from Stalin on; and I really doubt that anyone will find a statistically significant percentage of the answers.
Next, yes - that's what a tactical nuke is, and these detonations seemed to appear in that class on the seismograph. There is another possible explanation, though.
Starting 1969, the Soviets were known to have deployed a good portion of their nuclear forces to the Sino-Soviet border zone, sometimes right up to the border itself. It's entirely possible that in at least one of the events, a Soviet missile position was about to be overrun by Chinese troops and faced with a "use it or lose it" scenario, the commander used the "salvage-fuse" option and set one off.
However, that's speculation as, well, nobody's talking about just *what* happened on that border.
A declassified "Intelligence Note" from the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, of June 3rd 1969, briefly touches on this.
However I've never seen any evidence such weapons were actually used.
would small nukes leave visible terrain features visible today? thinking if a person knew what to look for, google earth might provide a reference.
I remember hearing something about the Sovs using Fuel-Air Explosives during the border fighting. A possible explanation for the nuke stories?
Pingaling!
The location is far away from Kilju where the suspected test site is. If they do the calibration test, would it make more sense to do it at the Kilju site?
ping
Unless this is a secret site we didn't know existed.
Wow, now that's breaking news even if its 30 years later! I wonder if the NKs tried to test a nuke and it fizzled?
Hmm... if that is the case, Seoul is in real trouble, which is less than 60 miles away. Actually, Pyongyang is even closer to this place than Seoul.
Perhaps it is a scam to look like nuke went off.
I knew Sino-Soviet relations went sour soon after Stalin died and things heated up and there were years of border clashes. That nukes were used is news to me. Do you think both sides used nukes or just one? I think the Soviets had more advanced technology and the Chinese didn't "officially" test a nuke until sometime in the 1970s. Who knows what unofficially happened.
Thanks for the ping.
How about a surface mininng operation?
In the SF bay area, there is a mine that regularly has 1.5-2.0 tremors. it is next to the San Andreas fault and the map showing them always says "(posssible quarry explosion)"
Things went very sour when Mao told Kruschev he was willing to trade half of China's population to win a nuclear war with the US. The Soviets realized they were dealing with a madman and promptly pulled out all the nuclear scientists who were helping the Chinese. Things really got ugly with the border skirmishes in the late 60's-early 70's, but this is the first time I've heard it suggested that nukes were used. If it's true, I'm not surprised that neither side wants to talk about it.
My guess, based on what happened to us in Korea, is that the Red Army in Siberia was facing more of an invasion than a minor skirmish, and fearing an overrun, the Kremlin authorized using tactical nukes. It's the same doctrine NATO planned for in Western Europe in the event of war with the Warsaw Pact.
The trigger went off, but it didn't go nuclear?
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