N. de Silva¹

¹Geological Survey and Mines Bureau (GSMB)

Abstract:

The signatures of a nuclear explosion are adequately known through accumulated knowledge of previous nuclear tests. On-Site Inspectors should be fully trained and be able to take advantage of this accumulated knowledge during an OSI. However, one should not anticipate that the conventional observables be present since they might be altered by the Inspected State Party (ISP). We anticipate that a clandestine test would be conducted underground, where detection could be challenging. Although OSI techniques will be updated as new technology become available, we anticipate someone conducting a clandestine test would use the latest technology before it is available to the OSI team. The OSI team must be prepared to think out of the box and anticipate this issue. Where tools and technologies are inadequate, human intuition must prevail.