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Examination of the Debate on the 12 May 2010 Low-Yield Nuclear Test

Description: 

On 12 May 2010, the North Korean official daily morning newspaper Rodong Sinmun reported that North Korea succeeded in nuclear fusion on the Day of the Sun. The claimed event was investigated by several radionuclide groups and seismology groups. The main results in the radionuclide studies include: 1) the radioisotope data confirm the existence of an event with estimated origin time ranging from 11 May to 13 May 2010; 2) the presence of barium-140 can be explained only by a sudden nuclear event; and 3) the radioxenon analysis suggests that it was a low yield nuclear fissile rather than a nuclear fusion. However, the seismological evidence for the existence of this event has been under debate. Schaff et al. (2012) denied the existence of the event. Zhang and Wen (2015) confirmed that they found the seismological evidence of this low-yield nuclear test based on the consistency of radionuclide results and seismic analysis, including the origin time, location, Pg/Lg spectral ratios of the event. Kim et al. (2017) confirmed the occurrence of the event reported by Zhang and Wen (2015) but disagreed on the location and the nature of the event. They located the event at > 4 km southwest of the 2009 nuclear test and suggested that the event has more earthquake-like features.

In this work, we re-exam the accuracy of location determination and event discrimination for the 2010 event, based on the seismic data of the Dongbei broadband seismic network that were used by Kim et al. (2017). We relocate the 2010 event using body waves and the North Korea’s 2009 nuclear test as reference. The result shows that the 2010 event is located within a few hundred meters of the 2009 event and close to the north portal. Using a machine-learning phase picker – DiTingPicker and template matching respectively, we build a seismic event catalog for the region from 2006 and 2010 through scanning the continuous waveforms recorded by the network. Few earthquakes can be confirmed near the nuclear test. We will report the performance of various seismic discriminants built on the network data on classifying explosions and earthquakes in the region.

Session: Exploiting Explosion Sources: Advancements in Seismic Source Physics

Type: Oral

Date: 4/19/2023

Presentation Time: 05:00 PM (local time)

Presenting Author: Miao Zhang

Student Presenter: No

Invited Presentation: 

Authors