News archive :: Year 2006

18-08-2006 09:54

IV International Conference “Monitoring of Nuclear Tests and Their Consequences” is Held

IV International Conference "Monitoring of Nuclear Tests and Their Consequences" is finished. The event took place in "Borovoe" geophysical observatory of the Institute for Geophysical Researches, National Nuclear Center of the Republic of Kazakhstan (IGR NNC RK).

The conference much differs from the previous ones in considerably wider geographical coverage. Scientists from Kyrgyzstan (Z.A. Kal'met'yeva), Uzbekistan (M.S. Usmanova), Turkmenistan (B.N. Gaipov) participated the conference with report presentations. As before, there were a lot of representatives from far abroad and different regions of Russia.

The main report on status of Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) and current status of international system for nuclear tests monitoring was presented by Lassina Zerbo, Director of International Data Center of the CTBT Organization. Mr.Zerbo represented the organization by order of Tibor Toth, Executive Secretary. Doctor N.N. Mikhailova, Deputy Director of IGR NNC RK, characterized the development and prospects for Kazakhstan system of nuclear tests monitoring. Russian scientists also covered the issue of monitoring network development and provided study results of nuclear tests consequences. In particular, V.I. Outkin, correspondent member of Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS) reported about researches carried out in the Institute for Geophysics of UB RAS to assess the consequences of peaceful nuclear explosions performed at oil fields. Reports of Doctor M.S. Khairetdinov, Doctor V.V. Kovalevskiy from the Institute of Computational Mathematics and Mathematical Geophysics SB RAS presented new possibilities to use seismic vibrators for studying the fluid saturated and fractured zones, and possibilities to use seismic vibrators during the on-site inspection to be performed under CTBTO.  A.P. Vassiliyev presented several interesting reports about establishment history of special control service for nuclear tests monitoring in the USSR, and B.P. Znamenshchikov reported about up-to-date scientific works performed by the organization.

The event was attended by many representatives from far abroad. Dr. Frode Ringdal (Norway), Scientific Director, Norwegian Seismic Center "NORSAR" told about new methods to process the data obtained from seismic arrays.  Norwegian and Kazakhstan National Data Centers have many years' cooperation. Specialists from "NORSAR" once provided Kazakhstan center with their software and helped to adjust automatic data processing at seismic stations of NNC RK on a real-time basis. Such a data processing but extended and supplemented with own developments is being performed in Kazakhstan Data Center and currently, enables to have a preliminary information for coordinates and intensity in 10-20 minutes after an earthquake.

Presentation of Dr. Frode Ringdal addressed the latest, the most up-to-date methods developed in NORSAR for processing the data from seismic arrays and gave examples of successful application of seismogram correlation method for more accurate localization of chemical explosions in Scandinavia.

Dr. Rong Song Jih (USA) reported about his works on analysis of calibration explosions carried out at the former Semipalatinsk test site within 1997 - 2000.  He compared velocity models of geologic environment at the test site prepared by specialists of IGR NNC RK and Institute of Seismology MES (Ministry of Education and Science) RK based on the data of the calibration explosions with other models developed by USA specialists based on the same data from calibration explosions but by other methods. His comparison demonstrated a good conformity between the two results, it told of a high degree of investigations performed by Kazakhstan specialists.

Representatives of Scientific Unit of AFTAC monitoring center Dr. Robert C. Kemerait and William N. Junek described the new methods which enabled to improve the accuracy of seismic events localization. They showed how to more accurately estimate the earthquake intensity using cepstral analysis. This, on the one hand makes possible to determine coordinates more accurate, and on the other hand may contribute to the issue of nuclear explosions and earthquake detection as reliable determination of event intensity may indicate that the event is not of natural character.

Dr. Joselyn Guilbert from France presented a new method to get information about earthquake source by seismic recording code. This may considerably change the degree of monitoring data processing and interpretation in the future.  Yuriy Starovoit (CTBTO representative) told about problems arising at calibration of infrasound detectors.

Besides, the conference was attended by specialists from NNC RK. Reports presented by Z.Sineva, I.Komarov, A. Smirnov, A. Belyashov generated a great interest. The reports addressed the new investigation results. Specialists from other organizations of Kazakhstan - T.Kaidash, N.Poleshko (Institute of Seismology MES RK), M.Tlebaev (Kazakh National Technical University), Ya. Drobszheva (Institute of Ionosphere MES), O.Arkhipkin (Institute of Space Research MES RK) also presented their comprehensive and interesting reports.

Along with the presentations, the conference participants had a possibility to take part in excursion to the AS057- Borovoe operating station of International monitoring system, in climbing and excursions to the beauty spots of Borovoe. Unfortunately, the first two days the weather was not nice - the sky was clouded over, it was drizzling. But, later the weather inclined fair, it became fine and warm.

In general the conference was very successful.

Information prepared by N. Zhdanova