- Installation team outside the equipment enclosure at station PS32.
The Russian Federation is actively involved in the global verification regime that is being established to monitor compliance with the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT). By hosting 30 facilities that belong to the CTBT’s International Monitoring System (IMS), Russia is a key player in the Treaty that bans all nuclear explosions on Earth by monitoring nuclear testing activities. Russia hosts the second highest number of IMS facilities of any Member State after the United States, and the installation of several monitoring stations has been completed over recent months.
The CTBT uses four inter-linked technologies to verify compliance with the Treaty in all environments: seismology; hydroacoustics; infrasound monitoring and radionuclide monitoring. Seismic technology is used to monitor underground testing of very low yields, hydroacoustic technology monitors the oceans and infrasound monitoring detects atmospheric nuclear tests.
Radionuclide monitoring - the “smoking gun”
- Lowering of the seismometer into the borehole at PS37.
Under certain circumstances, seismic and acoustic detection technologies might not provide sufficient unambiguous data to indicate whether a large conventional explosion or small nuclear test has taken place. The fourth technology, radionuclide monitoring is complementary to the other technologies and can confirm conclusively whether an event was nuclear or not. It does so by detecting minute quantities of "noble" gases, such as xenon, released by underground nuclear explosions as well as radioactive particulates vented by atmospheric tests. It thus provides the “smoking gun” needed to prove a possible violation of the Treaty. With its “forensic proof” of nuclear explosions, radionuclide technology is of crucial importance to the entire verification effort.
Several radionuclide stations certified over recent months
- Radionuclide station RN59 in Zalesovo, Russian Federation
Of the 80 radionuclide stations foreseen by the Treaty negotiators, the Russian Federation is currently hosting eight such stations, of which three have already been certified as meeting defined IMS requirements and specifications. These stations are transmitting data to the International Data Centre (IDC) in Vienna, where the raw data are processed, analyzed, and disseminated to the Member States. The most recent certification took place on 24 September 2008 at radionuclide station RN59 in Zalesovo . The station covers a huge area including the whole of central Siberia and part of the Mongolian plateau. The station has been specially constructed to withstand temperatures which can plummet to minus 50 degrees Celsius.
