Posted on 09/05/2017 9:09:01 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The single mountain under which North Korea most likely conducted its five most recent nuclear bomb tests, including the latest and most powerful on Sunday, could be at risk of collapsing, a Chinese scientist said.
By measuring and analysing the shock waves caused by the blasts, and picked up by quake stations in China and neighbouring countries, researchers at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei, Anhui province, said they were confident that they were all carried out from under the same mountain at the Punggye-ri test site.
The team from the seismic and deep earth physics laboratory made the claim in a statement posted on their website on Monday. Its leader, geophysicist Wen Lianxing, said that based on data collected by more than 100 earthquake monitoring centres in China, the margin of error was no more than 100 metres.
Wang Naiyan, the former chairman of the China Nuclear Society and senior researcher on China’s nuclear weapons programme, said that if Wen’s findings were reliable, there was a risk of a major environmental disaster.
Another test might cause the whole mountain to cave in on itself, leaving only a hole from which radiation could escape and drift across the region, including China, he said.
“We call it ‘taking the roof off’. If the mountain collapses and the hole is exposed, it will let out many bad things.”
Sunday’s blast was followed by an earthquake eight minutes later, which China’s seismic authorities interpreted as a cave-in triggered by the explosion.
Not every mountain was suitable for nuclear bomb testing. Wang said, adding that the peak had to be high, but the slopes relatively flat.
(Excerpt) Read more at scmp.com ...
How long the mountain would continue to stand would also depend on where the North Koreans placed the bombs, Wang said.
Yes, it could suddenly and mysteriously implode for unknown reasons, and as far as China is concerned, it would be Fat Boy’s fault for hollowing out the poor old mountain too much.
How much does one of these tests cost? (Prolly a lot of rice)
What is the Chinese word for "karma"?
LOL!
The Chinese scientists who were there helping are worried huh?
I don’t know the Chinese word for Karma but I do know what Charlie Chan would say about this.
Sum Ting Wong
I thought of that as well.
Mysteriously implode? Yeah, that’s the ticket.
It works for me.
Maybe a Chinese James Bond will do it.....
I’m guessing that this mountain will implode - somehow, mysteriously.
And with it, the nuclear program of DPRK.
That will be interesting.
The world is being set up with this story.
The mountain has been compromised by DPRK nuke tests. The mountain implodes, blamed on DPRK nuke tests. No more DPRK nuke program.
International cleanup required? Who knows, maybe. More “reason” to stop the DPRK nuke program.
Made me laug out loud.
“We call it ‘taking the roof off’. If the mountain collapses and the hole is exposed, it will let out many bad things.”
Well then, let’s “let the roof come off,” and hope the winds are blowing strongly in a westerly direction. Now that would be just deserts for China.
Unfortunately, even if they can't fix the test site, NK has lots of mountains. A delay in the weapons program may just make USA action less urgent.
I bet China is not happy with this latest test. NK likely did not tell them of this test nor its size. The resulting implosion of the mountain will always be a big risk of radiation leaking......all in China’s backyard.
So, they have to tunnel ever-deeper into ever-more-fractured weak rock that will retain each blast less and less thoroughly. So, yes, some future warhead blast will almost certainly release contamination into the atmosphere. The NorK leadership will not care - they are not tunneling nor are they loading the weapon into contaminated, dusty tunnels through fractured rock.
A US weapon (conventional or nuclear) would not really do any extra damage to the tunnel or test point at the end of the tunnel underground that will help. Yes, it would destroy that single warhead - if it landed before the test blast. But, so what? One warhead is destroyed by our attack. The technicians loading the bomb would be killed. But, again, so what? Technicians can be replaced, and they are already being irradiated and contaminated. The NorK leaderships considers them expendable anyway.
What MUST be destroyed is the recycling center and extraction/concentration center (to prevent more material from being separated from the reactor waste and centrifuges, and assembled into weapons) and as many people there killed.
And, more importantly, the NorK leadership (Kim himself first of all) must be killed at the same time the weapon facility is destroyed. But doing so will make the NYTimes and Obama’s ABCNNBCBS press corpse unhappy.
“We call it ‘taking the roof off’. If the mountain collapses and the hole is exposed, it will let out many bad things.”
Mothra? Rodan?
(Yes, I know, Japanese, no need to correct me)
Will the Miggy Cabrera double be strapped to a table when it goes?
Good post.
Here is an excellent (unclassified) report used by the CIA to determine yield:
http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a223490.pdf
The claims by the Norks are highly suspect as the depth of the blast and the rock density are unknown. That’s why it’s called a heavily censored explosive yield.
I have seen the sniffing reports done by the Chinese and no radioactive markers have been released so far that are beyond background radiation.
If, if the 6.3 magnitude holds and that is unlikely, there is an absolute upper yield of around 600 kilotons. Looks like the magnitude will probably settle in at 5.9 so the upper theoretical yield would be no more than about 370 kilotons.
Guessing at the depth of the blast is difficult. Given that the blast cavern has already likely collapsed, with no surface emission the depth was likely at least 300 meters.
The rock density is fairly soft in that area allowing manual mining historically. So, the blast yield would likely be in the 110 to 160 kiloton range.
That is still a significant improvement for the Norks.
Boosted fission is very likely. The Nork’s main problem is acquiring refined beryllium. They have the ore but lack the very tricky refining technology. Even the Chinese have to buy it.
Without a significant beryllium neutron reflector, air blasts would be very inefficient compared to an underground test.
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