So, what's up in North Korea? The news is awfully quiet...

[hunter]

My own speculation about that big blast in North Korea is that they were looking for geological formations that would muffle the seismic signatures of underground nuclear weapons testing.

To me the blast, as reported, does not seem to be consistent with a large earthmoving project. When you want to remove rock it is much more efficient to "tear" it with a succession of smaller blasts, much like you tear a piece of paper, rather than breaking all the rock apart with a single large blast.

If I happen to be wearing my tinfoil hat, I speculate that North Korea has officially joined the "nuclear club" with nuclear bombs and long range missiles, and nobody wants to talk about that.

I'm posting this here in EES, rather than someplace like GD, because I'm most interested in scientific, rather than political, points of view.

[slor]

1. Ummm...

They look french?

[phantom power]

2. I'd be surprised if any geologic formation could "muffle" a nuclear test

Rock of any type transmits vibration pretty well. But I'm not a geologist.

[Snow]

3. Well, there's been some speculation that it was an accident

at a missile factory. The area is one that they're trying to develop for tourist trade. A coupla years ago they opened up Kumkang mountain for tourism, and it's been working pretty well in attracting South Korean tourists. This blast happened right near Paektoo Mountain, the other legendary big mountain in Korea and one that would certainly pull in a lot of Korean tourists. It's also so close to the border with China that I really have difficulty envisioning them trying to do weapons testing there. It's not very difficult to get spies from all kinds of countries into the Chinese towns on the border, and so something that close would be easier to watch than elsewhere.

For that reason, I find the missile factory idea a little odd. I suspect it was an accident, but of what nature, who knows.

[smirkymonkey]

4. I have asked this before, but I'll try again in a more science

minded forum. If it was actually a nuclear test or accident, and not just a "regular" explosion, wouldn't the nearby countries be able to test the air for heightened levels of radiation?

Especially who ever was down wind of the blast, certianly there would be some kind of radioactive activity showing up? Anybody?

[Snow]

5. Check the recent news reports, stuff that came out over the weekend

there were a number of reports that said
a) no double flash characteristic of nukes
b) no radioactivity.
I'd google it for you, but it's easy to find.

[hunter]

7. I'm thinking more of a geology experiment...

Like, this is what big explosions do in these sorts of geological formations. That would be a good thing to know if you were planning to test a bomb.

[NNadir]

6. Absolutely. A nuclear explosion, especially an atmospheric one

with a mushroom cloud has a very distinct radiation signature. There would have been an immediate injection into the atmosphere of such characteristic short lived isotopes such as Xe-133, Xe-135, Ar-37. These isotopes are generally not found unless freshly made, as in a nuclear explosion. In addition there is usually a spike in activity for long lived isotopes such as Cesium-137, Strontium-90, and Kr-85. (These isotopes still remain from the last atmospheric tests in the 1960's, but their activity has been decreasing in a regular way.)

Most nuclear decays are so energetic that it is possible to detect single decays of single atoms. This is, in fact, how some of the new elements in the periodic table have been detected, on an atom by atom basis.

Nuclear explosions release huge amounts of radioactivity, even though some of it disappates by decay very rapidly. (The radioactivity associated with a nuclear explosion is inversely proportional to its life time.)

There is no way in hell that this explosion could have been nuclear without fast detection within a matter of hours.

[smirkymonkey]

8. Thanks for the explaination!

That's exactly what I was looking for - in terms I could understand! :hi:

Are there machines that are constantly monitoring radiation in the air (kind of like seismographs, but for radiation?) I know this is probably a dumb question, but I just wanted to know if there was anyway to monitor radiation leaks when there is no "visible" cause or explosion - or would there always be an explosion if there was a huge release of radiation, regardless of the cause?

I guess what I am trying to ask is if there is anyway to poison a population slowly via radiation without any visible/obvious symptoms?

i.e. - kind of like x-rays or scans, you don't feel or see anything, but you are exposed to higher levels of radiation.

[NNadir]

9. North Korea is very close to Japan and Japan monitors radiation for safety

reasons. Japan has a huge nuclear industry and is thus laced with radiation detectors. When the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl blew up, the accident was first detected by radiation monitoring equipment at Nuclear Power plants in Sweden. The same situation would most certainly be obtained in Japan in the event of an atmospheric nuclear test in Korea.

We also know that security and intelligence agencies have extensive radiation monitoring equipment around the Korean peninsula. This equipment is extemely sensitive and was successfully able to monitor Kr-85 spikes when the North Koreans began to reprocess spent nuclear fuel. The amount of radiation released in such processing, even technologically crude reprocessing, is small and dilute; no explosion accompanies it.

It is generally agreed that some people were killed by atmospheric nuclear testing in the 1950's and 1960's, notably Japanese fishermen near one of the US hydrogen bomb tests, but it is doubtful that the number of persons who were killed in these events was very large. We also understand that many "downwinders" mostly in Utah and Nevada had elevated cancer risks. But we need to differentiate between a risk and a certainty. It is NOT true that 100% of the 1950 era citizens of St. George, Utah, for instance, have died from cancer. We have a number of people today who are suing the government because of exposure to nuclear fallout from atmospheric nuclear tests, but it is worth noting that they are suing 40 years after the events. That they have lived long enough to sue is telling.

[smirkymonkey]

10. Thanks for another clear concise answer!

My brother is a nuclear physicist, but can NEVER give me an answer in words I understand!

Thanks!