What geology can reveal about the true scope of North Korea's nuclear program

Since the first in 2006, which has been a failure for many badysts, until the last year of 2017, when we think that Pyongyang has tested a hydrogen bomb that has released a huge amount of energy, these open trials marked the country's entry into the club of nuclear powers and triggered an escalation of tensions with the international community and especially the United States which continues to this day.

The two meetings between North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump in June 2018 and February 2019,both historical and instrumental in reducing tension, have resulted in little denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

These negotiations, to a large extent,They are based on the badumption that North Korea has perfected its nuclear weapons over the course of six trials and now has an arsenal of 30 to 60 warheads.

But the truth is that We know very little about these trials, detected only with the help of seismographs and satellite images of Punggye-ri, and the number of weapons in the arsenal is hardly an estimate.

Geology, however, can give a glimpse of the real power of North Korean atomic bombs, According to a recent article by the seismologist at the University of Southern California, Marshall Rogers-Martinez, in an article by The conversation

For example, the soil conditions in Punggye-ri are not known precisely, which can reduce or exaggerate seismograph readings after explosions, so that current test records can not be considered accurate.

Another phenomenon to consider is the effect of the fracture on the ground. All nuclear tests conducted by North Korea were conducted underground (at a frequency between 300 and 1,000 meters and at an altitude of 1,350 meters) and at the same site. it is expected that the same rock has been fractured, explosion after explosion, to generate a less stable soil serving as a buffer, said Rogers-Martinez, a geology expert who has conducted research for the US Armed Forces.

That is to say that as long asThe more energy an explosion releases, the harder it is to estimate its power from seismographic readings., adds the expert.

What does this mean in the case of North Korea? As the records of performance (or the yield, measured in its equivalent with tons of explosive TNT) the six nuclear explosions that occurred between 2006 and 2017 may be less than the real.

At the first of these events, held on October 9, 2006, while his father, Kim Jong-il, was still in power, it is thought that the explosion has reached "barely" a yield of between 0.7 and 2 kilotonnes, a unit equivalent to 1,000 tons of TNT.

In comparison, the bomb launched by the United States at Hiroshima in 1945 had a power of between 15 and 18 kilotonswhile that of Nagasaki was between 20 and 22 kilotonnes.

So rare was the yield What most badysts have interpreted the test as a failure. But Rogers-Martinez warns that without knowing the conditions of the soil, this can not be taken for granted.

In the following tests, performance has increased and it has been interpreted that the schema has succeeded: 2-5,4 kt in 2009, 6-16 kt in 2013; 7-16,5kt in 2016; 15-25 kt in a second try in the same year.

And finally, September 3, 2017 North Korea has tested its most powerful aircraft yet, with a calculated yield of between 70 and 280 kilotons. The scheme ensured that it was a hydrogen bomb, a thermonuclear device which includes in its design an atomic bomb which, once exploited, generates a nuclear fusion and reaches returns very superior

But again these approximations are made with a lack of remarkable information, and real yields could be much higher.

In comparison, the artifact The most powerful nuclear power in history was tested in 1961 by the Soviet Union. This hydrogen bomb called "tsar" reached an estimated power of 50 megatonnes (about 50 million tons of TNT, or 1,000 kilotonnes).

North Korea is the ninth country to obtain nuclear weapons, after the five "big" members of the United Nations Security Council (United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia and China), as well as India, Pakistan and Israel.

"Negotiating the disarmament of North Korea and its verification it is impossible that US experts do not have accurate data on the country's achievements so far "warns Rogers-Martinez.