Earthquake?

[danielh41]

I found this rather disturbing story: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/128151

Iranian Nuke Scientist: Weekend Quake was a Nuclear Test

by Hillel Fendel


(IsraelNN.com) A weekend 5.0 Richter earthquake in Iran was actually a nuclear bomb test, says an Iranian nuclear scientist claiming to be working on the project.

The report is an Israel Insider exclusive.

This past Saturday night, southern Iran experienced what was reported as a significant earthquake - a seismic event measuring 5.0 on the Richter scale. Its epicenter was just north of the strategic Straits of Hormuz, which separates Iran from Abu Dhabi and Oman and which is the gateway to the Persian Gulf.

The report quotes an Iranian nuclear scientist who claims to be working in uranium enrichment for the project, and who said that the "quake" was acutally an undergound nuclear bomb test.

Israel Insider adds that the test/quake was actually the second in a series. Nine days ago, a 4.8 Richter scale event occurred, with its epicenter only five kilometers away from the weekend tremor.

The Israel Insider source reports that two nuclear rockets are currently ready - and are intended for use against Israel in the coming months.

If the report is correct, it would belie previous speculation that Iran would not begin nuclear testing until it had more nuclear-bomb production capability.

The geographical location of the test has several advantages. It is exposed to significant seismic activity, which could serve to mask nuclear tests; it is believed to be close to Iran's nuclear development facility; delivery and transport of material and personnel can be effected easily through the Hormuz Strait; and Iranian enemies would hesitate to bomb the area because that would threaten the flow of a substantial percentage of the world's oil.

Reuters reports Thursday morning that Iran has begun building a line of naval bases along its southern coast and up to the Straits of Hormuz.

Now, this is from a small newspaper, and they never say who the "Iranian nuclear scientist" is. So is the story true? I don't know, but it could be.

Of course, according to barack obama, Iran is a tiny country and isn't a threat. I hate to think of having to our national defense in the hands of this fraud in light of current developments...

[gsabc]

My understanding is that underground nuke tests have seismographic patterns distinctly different from those of true earthquakes. If that's true, I would have thought that some university's geology lab department would have seen it and mentioned it to a newspaper.

Like all announcements from Iran, I take it with a canister of sodium chloride. Which is not to say that it isn't true and extremely frightening.

Besides, an Iranian insider scientist contacting ANYONE inside Israel? Even through go-betweens? Is the Insider a tabloid rag or a serious paper?

[gsabc]

From science.howstuffworks.com, discussing North Korea's test from a couple of years ago:

"Another method of detecting a nuclear blast is by seismograph, the device that monitors Earth tremors to pinpoint and analyze earthquake activity (among other ground-shaking events). There's actually a whole network of 500 seismograph stations positioned around the world whose job is to report ground-shaking incidents, and that includes any evidence of bomb blasts. ...

Figuring out if a seismic event is an earthquake or a bomb blast is relatively easy. Scientists perform analyses of wave patterns that can accurately confirm an earthquake-versus-explosion determination. In highly simplified terms, in an earthquake, the ground starts shaking slowly as plates slide against each other, and then the seismic activity slow picks up as the ground really starts to move. In an explosion scenario, the initial blast is extremely power­ful, and the subsequent shaking of the ground grows progressively less severe. But figuring out it's a blast and not an earthquake is only part of the process; seismographs can't really determine if the blast was nuclear or conventional in nature. Also, it's possible to "hide" a nuclear blast, for instance by detonating it in a tremendous underground cavity, which decreases the effects on the ground because the blast's energy goes into compressing all that gas in the huge hole. These limitations in the seismograph system make atmospheric testing a necessary component in the detection system."

So the data are still equivocal. I'd bet there were some U.S. sniffer planes over the area as soon as they could manage if there were any suspicions.

[mrkelley23]

If this was a nuclear blast, there are at least 1000 seismic stations worldwide that would have recorded and could verify it as such, since a bomb blast has a distinctly different waveform than an earthquake. This is a subject I even have some experience with, and although I wouldn't claim to be expert enough to be able to read the seismograms on my own, I know of at least 4 university professors here in the US who would be able to receive this seismogram at their home station, decode it, and verify the story. Since they haven't, I'm pretty sure that this story is a bunch of hokum.

It looks to me like someone has taken a page out of the Fox News playbook, and decided to phrase an outright falsehood as a question, so they can claim plausible deniability when they are called on it.

Shame on them, and shame on the crossposter.