Regional source properties of the North Korean nuclear explosions

Seismic analyses based on regional waveforms receive increasing attention for discrimination and source studies of recent moderate-size underground nuclear explosions (UNEs). Two North Korean underground nuclear explosion tests were conducted in 9 October 2006 and 25 May 2009. The Noth Korean UNEs were well observed by dense regional seismic networks with high signal-to-noise ratios. The source properties of the two North Korean UNEs are estimated using source-spectral inversions of regional phases. Ray-path effects including attenuation are corrected in the inversion. The source properties of the UNEs are compared each other. The apparent moments of high-frequency regional phases of the 2009 UNE are estimated to be about 5 times greater than those of the 2006 UNE. The corner frequencies and overshoot parameters are determined to be similar between the UNEs. The North Korean UNEs are well discriminated from natural earthquakes using P/S spectral ratios. The S waves from the North Korean UNEs display fairly weak overshooting feature in the spectra unlike P waves.