Calibration and Recovery of Nuclear Test Seismic Ground-Motion Data from the Leo Brady Seismic Network

In 1960, Sandia National Laboratories established a small seismic network with stations in Nevada, Utah, and California with the mission to monitor underground nuclear tests (UGTs) at the Nevada National Security Site (NNSS, formerly known as the Nevada Test Site). Over time, this seismic network came to be known as the Leo Brady Seismic Network (LBSN). The LBSN recorded approximately 800 UGTs at the NNSS from its inception through the end of testing in 1992. These irreplaceable data, mostly archived on analog, frequency-modulated magnetic tapes and stored in vaults, are now being digitized. This necessitated a calibration method to take the data from analog FM to digital counts to ground-motion units. Complicating the issue, the seismic system setup, telemetering, instrumentation, and calibration methods changed several times over the course of the LBSN's service life, and much of the documentation and knowledge of the system has been lost to time. The information necessary to understand, interpret, and ultimately calibrate these data was therefore collected from many disparate sources, each of which contains bits and pieces of relevant information. Contradictory information was often the rule rather than the exception. Where necessary (due to a lack of direct information) we made educated guesses as to the exact system, setup, and methodologies used. Ultimately, we documented the evolution and configuration of the seismic network, and determined both empirical and analytical approaches to calibrating these data. Sandia National Laboratories is a multi-program laboratory managed and operated by Sandia Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Lockheed Martin Corporation, for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration under contract DE-AC04-94AL85000.