Chapter 6: Summary and Recommendations

Recommendation #5: Develop monitoring needs on a nation-by-nation basis by assessing the credibility of various evasion scenarios and required levels of confidence.

• Conducting a secret underground nuclear explosion requires consideration of many factors including: possession of a low-yield nuclear weapon for which the expected yield is well constrained, depth of burial, water table, mining operations, rock type, etc. Many of these factors are dependent on geographic area. It is an inefficient use of resources to monitor all areas at the same seismic level and with the same confidence. A region-by-region assessment of the credibility of various evasion scenarios and required confidence level should be undertaken.

• The use of broadband, three component arrays for monitoring regional seismicity remains a largely unexploited area of seismology. These portable arrays can be deployed rapidly, and have proven to be a valuable resource for obtaining seismological data in the former Soviet Union.

• Evasion scenarios should be evaluated with a multi-disciplinary approach. Contributions from weapon designers, containment experts, geologists, hydrologists, mining engineers, and geophysicists are necessary. This approach has demonstrated success for the review of U.S. nuclear tests by the Department of Energy´s Containment Evaluation Panel.

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  To implement...

• The global seismic networks should be expanded to densify coverage in areas of special interest.

• Portable broadband seismic array deployments should be incorporated within the basic research program to characterize regional seismicity and seismic wave propagation in areas of special interest.

• Multidisciplinary research should be encouraged in the assessment of evasion scenarios for various geographic provinces.

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