5 май 2014 г. - Syria war hones our seismic image of bombs
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Syrian war hones our picture of the seismic signature of bombs
Data from the blowing up of a Syrian army base have helped refine a seismic model of surface explosions - with
potential military and civilian applications
Syria war hones our seismic image of bombs
A MAJOR incident during the Syrian civil war is helping to pin down the seismic signature of distant bombs.
Although seismologists have long monitored nuclear explosions, any nuclear tests since 1980 have taken place
underground. Measurements of smaller, conventional explosions on or near the surface are relatively rare.
Accurate models of such blasts could help interpret seismic readings and allow rescuers to deal with incidents in
war zones or industrial accidents. "Knowing the yield and depth of large, shallow explosions is useful to government
agencies from an emergency response perspective," says Michael Pasyanos of the Lawrence Livermore National
Laboratory in California.
Working with colleague Sean Ford, Pasyanos added a dampening effect to existing models to account for how
shallow seismic waves are weakened when they pass from the ground into the air. To do this, they used data from
controlled explosions at the US army White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, in 2012 (Geophysical Research
Letters, doi.org/38p).
They were also able to test and refine the new model using seismic readings from May last year, picked up when
rebels blew up an army base in north-west Syria.
The model gave the cause of the explosion as a bomb equivalent to between 6 and 50 tonnes of TNT, depending
on the assumed depth. The rebels claimed to have used a 60-tonne bomb, so it is possible they were exaggerating
or that the explosives were of poor quality and did not fully detonate.
How accurate the model will prove depends on knowledge of the local geology, says Sam Toon <a
href="http://www.keele.ac.uk/geophysics/people/samtoon/"> of Keele University, UK, but he thinks it will be useful.
"With things like the rebels in Syria, it gives you an idea of the capabilities they've got, what kind of explosives they
might have access to." Jacob Aron n
"They tested the model on a large explosion last May, when rebels blew up a Syrian army base"
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