Characteristics of seismic waves from Soviet peaceful nuclear explosions in salt

Abstract

DISCLAIMERThis document was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States Government nor the University of CaIifosnia nor any of their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefthss of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represents that its use woufd not infringe privately owned rights. Reference b e i n to any specific commercial product, process, or service by trade m e , trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necesSariiy constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or the University of California The views and opinions of authots expressed herein do not necessarily state or rdect those of the United Shts ABSTRACTThe report is carried out by the Institute for Dynamics of the Geospheres, Russian Academy of Sciences under contract NB280344 with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, University of California. The work includes investigation of seismic waves generation and propagation from Soviet peaceful underground nuclear explosions in salt based on the data from temporary and permanent seismic stations. The explosions were conducted at the sites Azgir and Vega within the territory of the Caspian depression of the Russian platform. The data used were obtained in the following conditions of conduction : epicentral distance range from 0 to 60 degrees, yields from 1 to 65 kt and depths of burial from 160 to 1500 m. One of the goals of the work was to create a data bank of peaceful nuclear explosions including original data on explosions' conduction and materials of seismic measurements from the explosions. Original data include coordinates, origin times, yields, and depths of burial as well as geological conditions. Seismic data include digitized waveforms recorded in local zone in the range from 0 to 260 km and Bulletines of Soviet seismic network in the range from 4 t o 60 degrees. The seismic data from five individual explosions A -I , A-2, A-3, A-4, and A-5 fired at the site Azgir and from four similar explosions 7T, 6T, 5T, and 3T fired at the site Vega with time delay of about 5 minutes were' generally studied. All the 2 the site Azgir (official title: Site Galite) conducted in boreholes A-1,2,3,4,5 with yields ranging from 1 to 65 kt and depths ranging from 160 to 1500 m are used. There were also 12 explosions conducted at this scientific test site: 6 explosions in the water-filled cavity of the A-2 borehole, one explosion in the air-filled cavity of the A-3 borehole, and four group explosions in the A-7,8,40,11 boreholes in which a set of two or three (A-11) charges was placed. At the Vega site situated within Astrakhan gas condensate field, five series with total of 15 explosions were conducted in the period from 1980 to 1984 (one series per year). The series Vega-1 contained one explosion in the borehole IT (1980). The series Vega-2 included two explosions (...

The Soviet program for peaceful uses of nuclear explosions. Revision 1

“…Stimulated by a steady decline in the level of the Caspian Sea over the preceding 35 years as a result of climatic anomalies and municipal and agricultural uses of water from the Volga-Kama River system, a number of water management agencies in the Soviet Union had proposed diversion of water from the Pechora River in the Komi Republic, which flows northward into the Barent and Kara Seas, through a 112-km-long canal into the Kama and thence south to the Volga River and the Caspian Sea. 34,35 Perhaps driven to compete with U.S. proposals to use nuclear excavation to construct a new sea-level canal to replace the Panama Canal, Soviet PNE program scientists proposed to use nuclear explosions to construct the central 65-km of the Pechora-Kama canal where it passes though higher elevations. Their proposals envisaged the use of several hundred nuclear explosives, firing up to 20 at one time with aggregate yields of as much as 3 Mt.…”