Peru signs Facility Agreement

On 14 March 2001, a Facility Agreement was signed by the Permanent Representative of Peru, Ambassador Javier Paulinich (left), and the Executive Secretary of the CTBTO Preparatory Commission, Wolfgang Hoffmann (right) at the headquarters of the Preparatory Commission in Vienna. The Facility Agreement grants legal authority to the Preparatory Commission to work on Peruvian territory to establish a new auxiliary seismic station in Cajamarca (AS 77) and to upgrade an existing auxiliary station in Nana (AS 78). The stations are part of a network of 50 primary and 120 auxiliary seismic stations whose data can be used to help distinguish between possible nuclear explosions and the thousands of earth tremors registered annually.

The seismic stations together with 60 infrasound, 11 hydroacoustic and 80 radionuclide stations form the International Monitoring System (IMS), a global network of 321 stations which is supported by 16 laboratories. When fully operational, the IMS will be able to record acoustic signals in the atmosphere, under ground or in the seas as well as sample radioactive material from a possible nuclear explosion anywhere in the world. Some 100 monitoring stations are already transmitting data to the International Data Centre (IDC) in Vienna via the satellite-based Global Communications Infrastructure.