Nuclear tests are often carried out underground. While there are many reasons for that, not the least of which is to prevent the accidental spread of radioactive material. However, they also do it because the country testing them likely wants to remain secretive about their capabilities, but that might not be possible for long.
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00nuclear tests are often carried out underground there are many reasons for that not the least of
00:08which is to prevent accidental spread of radioactive material however they also do it
00:13because the country testing them likely wants to remain secretive about their capabilities
00:17but that might not be possible for long experts have now figured out a way to track underground
00:22tests and differentiate a nuclear bomb going off underground from other common and equally
00:27powerful geological events namely earthquakes researchers from the australian national
00:32university and the los alamos national laboratory in the u.s. have developed what they call a
00:37statistical model it lets them look at data that indicates geological displacement providing
00:42another metric for figuring out whether a bomb went off or whether the earth's crust made movement on
00:47its own and they say their new method can differentiate the two with 99 accuracy previous measures have
00:53looked at seismic source location for example determining whether the source of a large
00:57possible bomb related tremor was close to a fault line they are also able to tell at what depth
01:01seismic activity was created meaning if the seismic movement occurred at a depth greater than a mile
01:06and a half it's more likely natural still these are only guesses but their new method which is still
01:11under wraps is nearly 100 percent accurate