[Strategerist]

U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that seismic readings show that the conventional high explosives used to create a chain reaction in a plutonium-based device went off, but that the blast's readings were shy of a typical nuclear detonation.

This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever - if simply the high explosive trigger goes off, you do NOT get an M 4 range earthquake.

I have very limited confidence in Gertz's sources or competence.

[jveritas]

Me too, the guy was never right about any of his analysis, he is as bad and the liberal pundits, wrong all the time. However let us wait and see.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

...if simply the high explosive trigger goes off, you do NOT get an M 4 range earthquake.

I agree. So obviously, they faked it.

"Was it as good for you as it was for me darling? I mean...baby...the Earth...MOVED."

[MediaMole]

Any chance it was a large conventional explosion to calibrate test equipment?

[DB]

I don't think that is true.

Go look at the seismic data from the Russian submarine Kursk when it blew up in the north Atlantic. It was around a 3.5. You could do much better than that intentionally on the ground in a mine.

[El Gato]

This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever - if simply the high explosive trigger goes off, you do NOT get an M 4 range earthquake

Well, you could get a smaller than "Typical" blast, and the lower yield estimates of this one are still within the demonstrated range of "small" nuclear explosions.

[ConservativeMind]

A kiloton is a kiloton when exploded.

Of course a non-nuclear blast can make a disturbance of the same size nuclear.

[familyop]

"This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever - if simply the high explosive trigger goes off, you do NOT get an M 4 range earthquake."

Yep--especially from 6,000 feet down in a horizontal mineshaft. More media goons are spewing more fiction from their imaginations than I've seen on any one story in the past. They're desperate to put off military preparations and actions for their various reasons (anti-defense sentiments, investments,...). On the topic at hand, a test shot of a small nuke is worse than a test of a large one. That scares people of many varied interests, and it's natural for people to want to hide from immediate, small-cost-bearing responsibilities.

Besides, if Iran and North Korea are not stopped (and only one general way to do that, given their compulsions and attitudes), they'll fire nukes sooner or later.

[jerryem]

I would like to disagree with you Sir, with the modern explosive technology it would not be difficult to create such a blast, I personally know of an explosive that has a 500 to 1 greater impact than nitroglycerin, 25 tonnes of this used as a implosion ( not explosion )would create a good earthquake.

[Donna Lee Nardo]

Imagine if the administration is simply playing with Kim Jong-il and purposely deflating his grand act of nuke testing. That would drive the dictator up the walls (walls which we know he is already bouncing off of)!

You know, perhaps it's GWB's strateGeRy!

[Lazamataz]

This makes absolutely no sense whatsoever - if simply the high explosive trigger goes off, you do NOT get an M 4 range earthquake.

No, but this is sure much more of a fizzle than a nuke.

[rwfromkansas]

Frankly, the idea it was a fake is rather silly.

They tested a nuke. Deal with it.

Now, what are we going to do about it?

[bert]

.....I have very limited confidence in Gertz's sources or competence.....


I think you are correct. His sources may have been those noted here yesterday saying it wasn't nuclear. one wonders if NK has the ability to manufacture military grade explosives?

But, We should also bear in mind that there have been other very large explosions from North Korea in the not so distant past.

[onedoug]

Me too. There's a hell of a lot of energy in a 4+.

[azhenfud]

You could if Chiaman packed a hole with 200 tons of TNT and claimed it were nuclear (a dumb idea, yes) to get the US to consider face-to-face talks with NK.

No madman rants, threats, or flexile calisthentics have produced even a slight budge in US policy toward NK and Chiaman's obviously beginning to feel the pressure. With the string of failures Kim's regime has recently suffered and the rhetoric from Pyongyang, it's apparent his regime is running out of sane options.

I will wait for the radiation detection test conclusions before totally dismissing the probability of a nuclear test event by NK, but so far, all sniffing equipment indicates that the event may never have gone critical and since trigger devices usually aren't of the hundreds of ton ranges, I suspect Kim may have "set us up the bomb" of conventional TNT.