Iran: 3/23/12-3/29/12

Well it seems new talks have now been confirmed for April 13^th. The location of these talks is still in discussion but it seems they will probably be held in Istanbul, Turkey, between the six major powers, U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China, and Iran.

            The main message I want to talk about during this blog is: How do we know if Iran tests a nuclear weapon? Well this week I actually learned a little bit about this in my earthquake class. My professor said that usually a nuclear detonation, or any detonation for that matter, will show a p-wave that is larger than average compared to an s-wave in a seismogram. The p-wave is usually the first wave of an earthquake and causes minimal damage, while an s-wave is slower and causes most of the damage that comes from an earthquake. Here is an example of a typical earthquake seismogram:

Note that the wave initially after the red line, the p-wave, is comparatively smaller than the larger waves, the s-waves, behind it. This was a 4.8 earthquake in Iran only three days ago. Now let’s take a look at another earthquake that occurred in Iran only four days ago from the same seismometer:

Note how this time the p-waves are considerably larger compared to the s-waves. This is a good sign that it could be a weapons test. Although it is incredibly unlikely that Iran would let such detailed information about this “test” be allowed on the Tehran University website, one can never know. In the end, this test is more than likely just another small earthquake on the plains of Iran. But it is this kind of information that American geologists are reviewing daily so that they can be ready if Iran really tests one of their nuclear weapons.

 http://irsc.ut.ac.ir/newsview.php?eventid=59323&network=earth_ismc__