Seismology Division



The Seismology Division Geophysical Institute of Israel (GII ), has been assigned by the Earth Sciences Research Administration of the Israel, Ministry for National Infrastructures, to perform studies and surveys to reduce earthquake risk to the State of Israel.
In that capacity, the Seismology Division initiates R & D projects in many fields of seismology for better understanding the earthquake phenomena in our region and their possible consequences. The Seismology Division is the operator of about 100 seismic monitoring systems throughout Israel and maintains the National Seismological Data Center.

Since 1996 the Seismology Division is involved in research program of Nuclear Test Monitoring sponsored by the US Department of Defense and Department of Energy (being one of a few non-US participants of this program). A number of research projects devoted to different aspects of detection, location, identification and yield estimation of explosions were successfully completed (Principal Investigators - Dr. Y. Gitterman, Dr. V. Pinsky and Dr. R. Hofstetter).
A number of unique calibration and experimental explosions were conducted by GII in Israel and Cyprus (designed and supervised by Dr. Y. Gitterman), providing data for enhancing the operation of seismic stations of the International Monitoring System (IMS) and improvement of their monitoring capabilities, and for updating the database of different explosive sources:

DEAD SEA CALIBRATION UNDERWATER EXPLOSIONS (1999)
ROTEM CALIBRATION IN-LAND EXPLOSION 25 TON (2002)
CYPRUS DEEP BOREHOLE CALIBRATION EXPLOSIONS (2003)
SAYARIM CALIBRATION (32.5 TONS) AND EXPERIMENTAL EXPLOSIONS (2004)
BEIT- ALPHA CALIBRATION (20 TONS) AND EXPERIMENTAL EXPLOSIONS (2005)

Source phenomenology explosion experiments of special design - for empirical modeling of nuclear test seismic source, investigation of explosion phenomena, dynamic parameters and spectral features of radiated seismic waves, energy generation and partition between different regional seismic phases:

ORON DECOUPLING EXPERIMENT (2006)
NEW!!! ORON DEPTH-OF-BURIAL (DOB) EXPERIMENT (2007)

Reliable identification of a remote seismic source and estimation of its parameters, especially Depth-of-Burial (DOB) and yield (in kT of TNT) are important tasks in nuclear test monitoring within the framework of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). The importance was demonstrated recently after the recent North Korea test, which invoked a debate on its nature, chemical or nuclear, and controversial estimations of the yield, from data at regional seismic stations. The yield estimations are based mainly on seismic magnitude correlated with energy of recorded signals, which can depend also on source rock media, coupling conditions and the DOB. Therefore the knowledge of relationships between nuclear test parameters and dynamic features of seismic signals at remote stations is crucial for improvement of nuclear test monitoring. Conducted explosion experiments present an important contribution of Israel to improvement of nuclear test monitoring.