Abstract
Seismic discriminants based on the spectral seismogram and spectral magnitude techniques have been tested to discriminate between three events; a nuclear explosion which took place in Lop Nor, China with mb 6.1 and two earthquakes from the closest area with mb 5.5 and 5.3, respectively. The spectral seismogram of the three events shows that the frequency content of the nuclear explosion differs from that of the earthquakes where the P wave is richier in high frequency content in the nuclear explosion than the corresponding earthquakes. It is also observed that the energy decays more rapidly for the nuclear explosion than for the earthquakes. Furthermore, the spectral magnitudes reveal significant differences in the spectra between the nuclear explosion and the two earthquakes. The observed differences appear to be quite enough to provide a reliable discriminant. The estimated stress drop from the magnitude spectra indicates a higher stress drop of the nuclear explosion relative to the earthquakes of the same tectonic region.
Published Version
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