North Korea’s Nuclear Tests Could Trigger Volcanic Eruption

Currently, there are fears that North Korea could soon test a hydrogen bomb. Amidst these concerns, Yonsei Earth System Sciences Professor Hong Tae-kyung and his team are studying how North Korea’s nuclear tests could affect seismic activities at Mount Baekdu. This is the first study to show that seismic waves following a nuclear test could possibly cause an earthquake and volcanic eruption at the mountain on the North Korean-Chinese border.

Professor Hong and his team examined data from North Korea’s first three nuclear tests and compared them with the magnitude scales of past nuclear tests conducted by the Soviet Union and the United States. Their calculations show that with a magnitude of greater than 5.0, the blast would cause seismic tremors and changes in seismic earth pressure on the surface of Mount Baekdu and inside its magma chamber. This is the first study to show that North Korea’s nuclear tests are capable of causing significant volcanic activity at Mount Baekdu. The results were published on February 17 in the online edition of Scientific Reports, a sister journal of Nature.