Magnitude-yield relation for Soviet Peaceful Nuclear Explosions

A graph of body-wave magnitude (m_b) against the logarithm of the announced yield was prepared for a subset of the Soviet peaceful nuclear explosions (PNEs) featured in Sultanov et al. (1999).  A magnitude-log(yield) relation was derived using linear regression. Explosions detonated in cavities or near the surface in cratering experiments were not used, so the resulting relation is for confined explosions in competent rock of various types.  The m_b used was the robust network m_b derived by the International Seismological Centre (ISC)’s revised procedures (Bondàr and Storchak 2011).  The effect of relocation of some of the epicentres by up to 90 km (difference between ISC revised location and ground truth from Mackey et al. 2017) on network m_b values was found to be negligible at one decimal place.  The magnitude-log(yield) relation was determined by orthogonal regression, accounting for errors in both m_b and yield.

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