Research Required To Support Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Monitoring

On September 24, 1996, President Clinton signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty at the United Nations Headquarters. Over the next five months, 141 nations, including the four other nuclear weapon states -- Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom -- added their signatures to this total ban on nuclear explosions. To help achieve verification of compliance with its provisions, the treaty specifies an extensive International Monitoring System of seismic, hydroacoustic, infrasonic, and radionuclide sensors. This volume identifies specific research activities that will be needed if the United States is to effectively monitor compliance with the treaty provisions.

This report reviews and updates the 2002 National Research Council report, Technical Issues Related to the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). This report also assesses various topics, including: the plans to maintain the safety and reliability of the U.S. nuclear stockpile without nuclear-explosion testing; the U.S. capability to detect, locate, and identify nuclear explosions; commitments necessary to sustain the stockpile and the U.S. and international monitoring systems; and potential technical advances countries could achieve through evasive testing and unconstrained testing. Sustaining these technical capabilities will require action by the National Nuclear Security Administration, with the support of others, on a strong scientific and engineering base maintained through a continuing dynamic of experiments linked with analysis, a vigorous surveillance program, adequate ratio of performance margins to uncertainties. This report also emphasizes the use of modernized production facilities and a competent and capable workforce with a broad base of nuclear security expertise.

In September 1996, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), prohibiting nuclear explosions worldwide, in all environments. The treaty calls for a global verification system, including a network of 321 monitoring stations distributed around the globe, a data communications network, an international data center, and onsite inspections, to verify compliance. The problem of identifying small-magnitude banned nuclear tests and discriminating between such tests and the background of earthquakes and mining-related seismic events, is a challenging research problem. Because they emphasize CTBT verification research, the 12 papers in this special volume primarily addresses regional data recorded by a variety of arrays, broadband stations, and temporarily deployed stations. Nuclear explosions, earthquakes, mining-related explosions, mine collapses, single-charge and ripple-fired chemical explosions from Europe, Asia, North Africa, and North America are all studied. While the primary emphasis is on short-period, body-wave discriminants and associated source and path corrections, research that focuses on long-period data recorded at regional and teleseismic distances is also presented Hence, these papers demonstrate how event identification research in support of CTBT monitoring has expanded in recent years to include a wide variety of event types, data types, geographic regions and statistical techniques.

In September 1996, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), prohibiting nuclear explosions worldwide, in all environments. The treaty calls for a global verification system, including a network of 321 monitoring stations distributed around the globe, a data communications network, an international data centre (IDC), and on-site inspections, to verify compliance. This volume contains research papers focusing on seismic ecent location in the CTBT context. The on-site inspection protocol of the treaty specifies a search area not to exceed 1000 square km. Much of the current research effort is therefore directed towards refining the accuracy of event location by including allowances for three-dimensional structure within the Earth. The aim is that the true location of each event will lie within the specified source zone regarding postulated location. The papers in this volume cover many aspects of seismic event location, including the development of algorithms suitable for use with three-dimensional models, allowances for regional structure, use of calibration events and source-specific station corrections. They provide a broad overview of the current international effort to improve seismic event location accuracy, and the editors hope that it will stimulate increased interest and further advances in this important field.

In September 1996, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), prohibiting nuclear explosions worldwide, in all environments. The treaty calls for a global verification system, including a network of 321 monitoring stations distributed around the globe, a data communications network, an international data centre (IDC), and on-site inspections, to verify compliance. This volume contains research papers focusing on seismic ecent location in the CTBT context. The on-site inspection protocol of the treaty specifies a search area not to exceed 1000 square km. Much of the current research effort is therefore directed towards refining the accuracy of event location by including allowances for three-dimensional structure within the Earth. The aim is that the true location of each event will lie within the specified source zone regarding postulated location. The papers in this volume cover many aspects of seismic event location, including the development of algorithms suitable for use with three-dimensional models, allowances for regional structure, use of calibration events and source-specific station corrections. They provide a broad overview of the current international effort to improve seismic event location accuracy, and the editors hope that it will stimulate increased interest and further advances in this important field.

There Has Been A Lively Debate, For The Last Three Years, On The Question Whether Or Nor India Should Sign The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty [Ctbt]. In Spite Of Great Importance Of The Subject For National Security, The Full Text Of Ctbt Is Not Easily Available. The Present Book Fulfills This Gap. This Will Enable The Experts And The Common Man To Have Better Understanding Of The On-Going Debate On The Subject. The Editor Contends That India Should Not Sign Such A Discriminatory And Inequitable Treaty. Signing Of Such A Treaty Would Hinder India S Efforts To Safeguard Its Security.It Is Hoped That The Book Would Be Of Great Value To The Researchers And Students Of Defence Studies, Parliamentarians, Senior Executives Concerned With Defence And The Common Readers.

The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) is dedicated to banning nuclear explosions worldwide. It was negotiated and adopted by the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva to comprehensively prohibit nuclear testing underground, underwater, and in the atmosphere. It was opened for signature in 1996 and will enter into force as soon as all 44 nuclear technology holder countries, as denoted in Annex 2 to the Treaty, will have signed and ratified it. Germany signed the CTBT in 1996 and ratified it in 1998, thereby committing to establish a National Data Center (NDC) and to install, operate, and maintain five stations of the International Monitoring System (IMS) for monitoring the compliances with the Treaty. Contributions on various CTBT related topics by authors from the Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources in Hannover (Bundesanstalt f�r Geowissenschaften und Rohstoffe, BGR), which has been mandated by Germany as the NDC, are presented in this book. Studies on institutional, technical and scientific aspects in the CTBT context are described to highlight recent, current and future work at the German NDC and to contribute to the CTBT monitoring and verification tasks. Nevertheless, this book focuses primarily on those aspects of the verification regime where BGR has expertise as well as BGR's activities and responsibilities as the German NDC and an IMS station operator during the last twenty years. An overview of the CTBT history, verification, and implementation in Germany is provided together with a description of the five German IMS stations and the seismology, infrasound, hydroacoustic and radionuclide technologies. Studies on the global performance of the IMS technologies to detect, locate, and identify nuclear and non-nuclear events are presented, as well as various case studies on the application, testing and benchmarking of these technologies. These case studies include, in particular, the North Korean nuclear weapon tests from 2006 to 2016, but also the National Data Center preparedness exercises from 2007 to 2013, the Tohoku earthquake with tsunami and Fukushima reactor accident in 2011, and the Chelyabinsk meteoroid explosion in 2013. Further studies are related to considerations on the quality of CTBT International Data Center waveform products, and to the usefulness and potential of satellite remote sensing in CTBT context as a National Technical Means (NTM). Finally, the role of On-Site Inspection (OSI) in general and, specifically, Seismic Aftershock Monitoring Systems (SAMS) are discussed for investigating potential treaty violations as the ultimate step in the verification chain.

Pure appl. geophys., by 161 nations. Entry of the treaty into force, however, is still uncertain since it requires ratification by all 44 nations that have some nuclear capability and, as of 15 June 2001, only 31 of those nations have done so. Although entry of the CTBT into force is still uncertain, seismologists and scientists in related fields, such as radionuclides, have proceeded with new research on issues relevant to monitoring compliance with it. Results of much of that research may be used by the International Monitoring System, headquartered in Vienna, and by several national centers and individual institutions, to monitor compliance with the CTBT. New issues associated with CTBT monitoring in the 21st century have presented scientists with many new challenges. They must be able to effectively monitor com pliance by several countries that have not previously been nuclear powers. Effective monitoring requires that we be able to detect and locate much smaller nuclear events than ever before and to distinguish them from small earthquakes and other types of explosions. We must have those capabilities in regions that are seismically active and geologically complex, and where seismic waves might not propagate efficiently.