• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.34 no.6_4
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• pp.1531-1544
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• 2018

We detected the coseismic ionospheric disturbance generated by the earthquakes of magnitude 5.0 and greater in Korean Peninsula. We considered the seismic events such as Gyeongju earthquake in September 2016 with magnitude 5.8, the Pohang earthquake in November 2017 with magnitude 5.4, and the underground nuclear explosion from North Korea in September 2017 with magnitude 5.7. Although all GPS stations were not detected, the ionospheric disturbance induced by these earthquakes occurred approximately 10-30 minutes and 40-60 minutes after the events. We inferred that the time difference within each variation is due to the different focal depth and the geometry of epicenter, satellite, and GPS station. In the case of the Gyeongju earthquake, the earthquake had relatively deeper depth than the other earthquakes. However, the seismic magnitude was bigger and it occurred at nighttime when the ionospheric activity was stable. So we could observe such anomalous variations. It is considered that the ionospheric disturbance caused by the difference in velocity of the upward propagating waves generated by earthquake appears more than once. Our results indicate that the detection of ionospheric disturbances varies depending on the geometry of the GPS station, satellite, and epicenter or the detection method and that the apparent growth of amplitude in the time series varies depending on the focal depth or the site-satellite-epicenter geometry.

• The Journal of Korean Institute of Electromagnetic Engineering and Science
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• v.23 no.3
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• pp.392-401
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• 2012

This paper gives a electromagnetic coupling mechanism of the high altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) into large- scale underground multilayer structures using analytic and numerical methods. The modeling methods are firstly addressed to the HEMP source which can be generated by intentional nuclear explosion. The instantaneous and intense electromagnetic pulse of the HEMP source is concerned from DC to 100 MHz band, because the power spectrum of the HEMP is rapidly decreased under -30 dB over the 100 MHz band. Through this range, a penetrated electric field distribution is computed within the large-scale underground multilayer structures. As a result, the penetrated electric field intensities at 0.1 and 1 MHz are about 10 and 5 kV/m, respectively. Therefore, additional shielding techniques are introduced to protect buried structures within the large-scale underground structures such as high-lossy material and filtering structures (wire screen).

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.34 no.6_4
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• pp.1479-1488
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• 2018

On September 3rd 2017, strong artificial seismic signals from North Korea were detected in KMA (Korea Meteorological Administration) seismic network. The location of the epicenter was estimated to be Punggye-ri nuclear test site and it was the most powerful to date. The event was not studied well due to accessibility and geodetic measurements. Therefore, we used remote sensing data to analyze surface changes around Mt. Mantap area. First of all, we tried to detect surface deformation using InSAR method with Advanced Land Observation Satellite-2 (ALOS-2). Even though ALOS-2 data used L-band long wavelength, it was not working well for this particular case because of decorrelation on interferogram. The main reason would be large deformation near the Mt. Mantap area. To overcome this limitation of decorrelation, we applied offset tracking method to measure deformation. However, this method is affected by window kernel size. So we applied various window sizes from 32 to 224 in 16 steps. We could retrieve 2D surface deformation of about 3 m in maximum in the west side of Mt. Mantap. Second, we used Pleiadas-A/B high resolution satellite optical images which were acquired before and after the 6th nuclear test. We detected widespread surface damage around the top of Mt. Mantap such as landslide and suspected collapse area. This phenomenon may be caused by a very strong underground nuclear explosion test. High-resolution satellite images could be used to analyze non-accessible area.

• Geophysics and Geophysical Exploration
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.243-248
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• 2010

Two suspicious events, which were claimed as underground nuclear tests by North Korea, were detected in the northern Korean Peninsula on October 9, 2006 and May 25, 2009. The KIGAM and Korea-China Joint seismic stations are distributed uniformly along the boundaries between North Korea and adjacent countries. In this study, the data from broadband stations with the distance of 200 to 550 km from the test site are used to analyze and compare two nuclear tests of North Korea. By comparing the time differences of the Pn-wave arrival times of 1st and 2nd tests at multiple stations, the relative locations of two test sites could be calculated precisely. From the geometrical calculation with the velocity of Pn wave $V_{Pn}$ = 8 km/s, the 2nd test site is estimated to move in the WNW direction from 1st one with the distance of 2 km. Body wave magnitude, mb of the 2nd test, which was announced officially as the network average of 4.5, varies widely with the directional location of stations from 4.1 to 5.2. The magnitude obtained from Lg wave, $m_b$(Lg), shows less variation between 4.3 to 4.7 with the average of 4.6. The moving-window spectra of time traces of 1st and 2nd tests show very similar pattern with different scale level. In addition, the corner frequencies of P wave of 1st and 2nd tests at each station show no or negligible difference. This indicates the burial depths of two tests might be very similar. The relative yield amount of the 2nd test is estimated 8 times larger than that of the 1st from the weighted average of ground-velocity amplitude ratios.