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Published: 15 October 1999

Where can you hide a nuclear explosion?

Philip Ball

Nature (1999)Cite this article

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The re-election of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in India, led by A. B. Vajpayee, may rekindle hopes that India will sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), and that Pakistan will follow suit. The BJP has already indicated such an intention previously in December 1998. But both nations will surely want assurance that the other's adherence to the Treaty can then be verified by seismic monitoring of clandestine tests. In Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences¹(28 September), geologists Dan Davis of the State University of New York and Lynn Sykes of Columbia University in New York now suggest that both India and Pakistan have a paucity of geological environments most suited to such "hidden" tests.

Since it was opened for signature in 1996, the CTBT has been signed by 154 nations and ratified by 51. Of these, just 23 are amongst the 44 nations whose ratification is required for the Treaty to enter into force. The other 21 include India and Pakistan, neither of whom has yet signed.

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References

Davis,D. M. & Sykes, L. R. Geologic constraints on clandestine nuclear testing in South Asia Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 96, 11090 - 11095 1999.
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