Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America
HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced]


     

Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America; August 1996; v. 86; no. 4; p. 1054-1060
© 1996 Seismological Society of America
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Citation Map
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Gross, S.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
GeoRef
Right arrow GeoRef Citation

Aftershocks of nuclear explosions compared to natural aftershocks

Susanna Gross*

Seismological Laboratory Mackay School of Mines University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada, 89557

Abstract

Aftershocks of seven large nuclear explosions that were detonated at the Nevada Test Site (NTS) from 1968 through 1976 have been modeled with with different aftershock decay functions. Four natural aftershock sequences from the area have also been studied. The aftershocks of nuclear explosions are different from most natural aftershocks, because they decay more rapidly, and their decay is more often fit by variants of exponential functions. The aftershocks of nuclear explosions generally have shallower focus than natural aftershocks, in keeping with the relatively shallow depths at which the nuclear explosions were detonated. Rapid decay is also observed in shallow-focus aftershocks of natural earthquakes near the Nevada Test Site, suggesting that conditions at the hypocenters of the aftershocks influence the temporal decay of aftershocks. A theory of aftershock decay proposed by Dieterich (1994) predicts more rapid decay at shallow depths and offers one possible explanation of the results. Because aftershocks of nuclear explosions decay rapidly, the activity currently observed in the Nevada Test Site has most likely decayed fully, and so the current level of activity should persist into the future.

Footnotes

* Current address: CIRES, Box 216, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309. E-mail: sjg@quake.colorado.edu.




This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Bulletin of the Seismological Society of AmericaHome page
S. R. Ford and W. R. Walter
Aftershock Characteristics as a Means of Discriminating Explosions from Earthquakes
Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, February 1, 2010; 100(1): 364 - 376.
[Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

Home page
 Bulletin of the Seismological Society of AmericaHome page
Failure-Time Remapping in Compound Aftershock Sequences
Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, August 1, 2003; 93(4): 1449 - 1457.


Home page
 Bulletin of the Seismological Society of AmericaHome page
A Model of Tectonic Stress State and Rate Using the 1994 Northridge Earthquake Sequence
Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, April 1, 2001; 91(2): 263 - 275.


Home page
 Bulletin of the Seismological Society of AmericaHome page
J. Bhattacharyya, S. Gross, J. Lees, and M. Hastings
Recent earthquake sequences at Coso: Evidence for conjugate faulting and stress loading near a geothermal field
Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, June 1, 1999; 89(3): 785 - 795.
[Abstract] [PDF]


HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS
Copyright © 1996 by the Seismological Society of America.