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Mt. Mantap Nuclear Tests Reactivated Intraplate Faults, Study Finds
Key Takeaways
- A study in Science (Vol. 393, Issue 6817, pp. 1209-1212) reports that nuclear tests at Mount Mantap reactivated intraplate faults.
- Intraplate faults lie far from tectonic plate boundaries, where stress accumulates slowly and triggers for slip are poorly understood.
- Underground detonations redistribute stress through surrounding rock, potentially pushing pre-existing fractures toward failure.
- The finding complicates seismic monitoring, since fault slip adds its own signals to the explosion wavefield.
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DT Editorial Team··via science.org