Nuclear Testing To Be Monitored Boise State Scientist To Build Oregon Seismological Station

A Boise State University scientist will construct a sophisticated seismological station in eastern Oregon to learn how to snoop on countries that might violate the international nuclear test ban treaty.

Jim Zollweg, an adjunct geoscience professor, is leading work on the Blue Mountains Observatory 20 miles east of Baker City, Ore., on a site used to detect Soviet nuclear explosions in the 1960s.

The Air Force Office of Scientific Research has given Boise State $319,274 for the project.

“When you set off an explosion, it sets off the same kind of waves as an earthquake,” Zollweg said. “One way to see if everyone is complying is to monitor seismic activity and try to determine which are caused by explosions, which are earthquakes and which are nuclear weapons tests.”

Zollweg will put 13 monitors in a circle with a diameter of 4 miles.

The dense array of seismographs will closely monitor underground shock waves and make the observatory one of the most advanced in the world, said Robert Uhrhammer, research seismologist at the University of California at Berkeley.

Blue Mountains Observatory will be the only one of its kind in the Pacific Northwest and one of only two in the United States. There are 18 worldwide, most operated by the Air Force.

Construction on the unmanned station will begin in April, with completion expected in July. Information gathered at the station will be sent to Boise State for use by the Air Force and students.

Baker City was chosen as the site because shock waves must travel through a variety of geological environments from lowlands to granite mountains.

“It’s a worst-case situation,” Zollweg said. “If we can make a method of distinguishing explosions from earthquakes here, we should be able to use it anywhere on Earth.”

Seismology and nuclear testing is a fertile field for research, especially in detecting low-level explosions of 1 to 2 kilotons, Uhrhammer said.