Los Alamos Develops New Nuke Blast Detection Method

The Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) said last week it has combined seismic and gas-flow models to create a new method to detect underground nuclear explosions. This method offers “a more complete picture of how an explosion’s evidence (radionuclide gases) seep to the surface,” LANL said. Radionuclide gases produced by underground nuclear testing may travel to the surface through the fractures created in rock by an explosion’s shock waves. A “hydrodynamic rock damage/gas transport model” therefore helps observe “atmospheric pumping of gas through explosion-fractured rock,” according to the lab.

Previous approaches involved gas flow models without the explosion rock fracture element, LANL said, but researchers found that “simplified fracture models … did not provide the directionally dependent information—that is, whether the gas moved horizontally or upwards through the rock.” 

The lab’s new method helps identify “how much gas may be migrating horizontally away from the location of underground explosions using knowledge about atmospheric conditions … and seasonal variabilities in different regions.” The model, meant to be applied to nuclear explosion monitoring, features potential applications for “other geophysical systems that produce fractures with subsequent flow, such as hydraulic fracturing for fossil fuels, wastewater injection, mine explosions and damaged rock zones around excavations,” LANL said.