CTBT: Science and Technology Conference 2025 - SnT2025

Progress on digitization and recovery of historical U.S. nuclear test seismic data

P2.4-426

11 Sept 2025, 09:00

1h

Zeremoniensaal

Board: 30

E-poster T2.4 Historical Data from Nuclear Test Monitoring P2.4 Historical Data from Nuclear Test Monitoring

Speaker

Dr Brian Young (Sandia National Laboratories (SNL))

Description

For the past several years, Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) has been working to digitize, recover, and calibrate seismic data from its archive of hundreds of analog magnetic tapes. These tapes are original archives from the historical nuclear testing era, some dating more than 60 years old, and contain analog waveforms of regional seismic data of historical U.S. underground nuclear tests recorded on seismic stations of the Leo Brady Seismic Network. This effort has so far culminated in the release of 1,297 newly digitized seismic waveforms of 20 historical U.S. underground nuclear tests between 1966 and 1972. In 2024–2025, we have had further effort to digitize and recover more seismic data from these tapes. In this presentation, we will show the latest results of the digitization and recovery effort, as well as lessons learned from the recovery and calibration process.

SNL is managed and operated by NTESS under DOE NNSA contract DE-NA0003525.