Seismic events found by waveform cross correlation after the announced underground nuclear tests conducted by the DPRK on 12.02.2013 and 06.01.2016. Aftershocks or hidden nuclear tests?

TL;DR

This study uses waveform cross-correlation to detect aftershocks of North Korea's nuclear tests, revealing seismic activity related to these tests and providing insights into their underground processes.

Contribution

The paper demonstrates the effectiveness of the multi-master waveform cross-correlation method in identifying aftershocks of underground nuclear tests, including events not previously detected.

Findings

Detected several aftershocks of DPRK3 and DPRK4 tests.

Largest aftershocks suggest cavity or chimney collapse processes.

No other events found since 2009 with high-resolution analysis.

Abstract

The multi-master method based on waveform cross-correlation has found several aftershocks of the third (DPRK3) and the fourth (DPRK4) announced underground nuclear tests conducted by the DPRK on 12.02.2013, and 06.01.2016, respectively. The second DPRK test had no reliable aftershock hypotheses at the level of the method sensitivity and resolution. The closest to the test site array station USRK was not operational before 20.12.2008 and the first DPRK test cannot be analyzed by the multi-master method based on waveform templates from two IMS stations - USRK and KSRS. The largest aftershocks of the DPRK3 and DPRK4 are close in magnitude to the first aftershock of the DPRK5 on 11.09.2016, and many aftershocks of the DPRK6. Three big aftershocks of the DPRK3 occurred on 25.05.2014, i.e. 467 days after the mainshock. The DPRK3 aftershock found at 6:43:03 UTC had a relative magnitude of 2.91. There were found two aftershocks of the DPRK4: on 19.02.2016 (0:28:07 UTC) and on 02.07.2016 (19:52:27 UTC). The largest aftershocks of the DPRK3 and DPRK4 could be interpreted as related to the cavity collapse process likely followed by a chimney collapse, not reaching the free surface, however, as no noble gases and/or radionuclide particles were detected. Seismic signals from all events found before the DPRK5 (09.09.2016), had a high level of cross-correlation with the waveform templates of the DRPK5 and DPRK6. These signals prove the shape similarity, and thus, the close spatial proximity of the seismic events after DPRK3/DPRK4 to the DPRK5/DPRK6 aftershocks. There were no other events found by the multi-master method since 01.01.2009, even when the highest resolution regime was used. The resolution and sensitivity of the multi-master method were tuned and tested using the data after 09.09.2016.