Australia’s infrasound station “IS03” in Davis Base, Antarctica, is one of nearly 300 certified stations of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) Organization monitoring system, feeling and sniffing the Earth for any signs of a nuclear explosion. The global system will comprise 337 facilities when complete.  “The monitoring stations in Australia cover a large expanse of the Southern hemisphere. They are strategically positioned to contribute significantly to the International Monitoring System (IMS) detection and location capability. All six nuclear tests by North Korea were clearly detected by Australia’s IMS seismic stations,” Zerbo said.

“Australia ranks third among countries hosting the largest number of monitoring facilities.  It covers all four technologies used for nuclear test detection. Some of the stations are located in particularly remote and inaccessible areas of the Earth, such as Antarctica. This has been a 20 year-long joint effort by CTBTO and Australia and is truly an extraordinary achievement,” Zerbo said.

The CTBTO’s global monitoring network captures four types of data: vibrations through the ground and in water – seismic and hydroacoustic; sound beyond the range of the human ear and detection of radioactive particles – infrasound and radionuclide.

The network guards against violations of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) banning nuclear explosions by everyone, everywhere: in the atmosphere, underwater and underground.  The global network detects nuclear tests with high reliability. For example, on 3 September 2017, over 100 stations in the network detected and alerted Member States to North Korea’s last announced nuclear test.

Excerpts from Comprehensive Nuclear Test  Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), Australia Completes Its Monitoring Stations in the Global Network to Detect Nuclear Tests, Nov 18, 2018, 15:45 ET