Establishment of data base of regional seismic recordings from earthquakes, chemical explosions and nuclear explosions in the Former Soviet Union

Abstract

In this report results of work on establishment of a data base of regional seismic recordings from earthquakes, chemical explosions and nuclear explosions in the former Soviet Union are described. This work was carried out in the Complex Seismological Expedition (CSE) of the Joint Institute of Physics of the Earth of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. The recording system, methods of investigations and primary data processing are described in detail. The largest number of digital records was received by the permanent seismic station Talgar, situated in the northern Tien Shan, 20 km to the east of Almaty city. More than half of the records are seismograms of underground nuclear explosions and chemical explosions. The nuclear explosions were recorded mainly from the Semipalatinsk test site. In addition, records of the explosions from the Chinese test site Lop Nor and industrial nuclear explosions from the West Siberia region were obtained. Four records of strong chemical explosions were picked out (two of them have been produced at the Semipalatinsk test site and two -- in Uzbekistan). We also obtained 16 records of crustal earthquakes, mainly from the Altai region, close to the Semipalatinsk test site, and also from the West China region, close to the Lop Nor test site. In addition, a small number of records of earthquakes and underground nuclear explosions, received by arrays of temporary stations, that have been working in the southern Kazakhstan region are included in this report. Parameters of the digital seismograms and file structure are described. Possible directions of future work on the digitizing of unique data archive are discussed.