HR: 16:40h
AN: S12F-03    [PDF]
TI: Evolving Earth Models and Nuclear Explosion Monitoring
AU: * Wallace, T C
EM: wallacet@lanl.gov
AF: Los Alamos National Laboratory, ms B446, EES Division, Los Alamos, NM 87545 United States
AB: One of the most important problems in nuclear explosion monitoring is accurate seismic event location. Traditional location methods rely on estimating travel times in a known Earth model and accounting for heterogeneity through various empirical corrections. The history of location accuracy and precision is closely coupled to evolving theories of the nature of the Earth's interior. LONG SHOT was a 80 Kt explosion conducted on Amchitka Island on October 29, 1965. The travel times recorded from LONG SHOT deviated strongly from a radially symmetric Earth, and in fact showed a pattern consistent a tabular body of relatively high seismic velocity (the subducting North American Plate) validating certain concepts of the then new theory of plate tectonics. \\ Each subsequent advance in conceptual models for the dynamics of the Earth's interior has impacted explosion monitoring. Many of the advances in the theory of the Earth's interior have been spurred by the ideas and work of Don Anderson. These include anelasticity, anisotropy, tomography, the Lehmann discontinuity, and mantle plumes (or lack of). The present state-of-the-art monitoring paradigm incorporates a dynamic Earth model, and the synergy between verification research and basic research on the Earth's interior is quite important.
DE: 7218 Lithosphere and upper mantle
SC: Seismology [S]
MN: 2003 Fall Meeting