Primary Seismic Featured Stations

PS09, Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada

The initial seismic array station was established near Yellowknife in 1962 as one of the United Kingdom’s Atomic Energy Agency’s international teleseismic medium-aperture arrays.

PS18, Tahiti, France

PS18 in Tahiti is one of 50 so-called primary seismic stations of the IMS network. These stations transmit data continuously to the International Date Centre (IDC) of Preparatory Commission of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban-Treaty Organization (CTBTO) in Vienna.

PS23, Makanchi, Kazakhstan

Primary Seismic station PS23 is located near the town of Makanchi in the Alakoskaya geological depression near the southern tip of Kazakhstan

PS31, Wonju, Republic of Korea

PS31 has a rather high level of seismic background ‘noise’ caused by human activity, especially by agricultural work close to array elements’ location.

PS36, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, Russian Federation

PS36 is located in the valley of the Plotnikov River about 100 km north of the town. It is notable that, besides this primary seismic station, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy also hosts two other IMS stations: infrasound station IS44 and radionuclide station RN60.

PS46, Lajitas, Texas, United States

PS46’s first array—a spatially distributed set of seismometers all transmitting their outputs to a Central Recording Facility (CRF) where they are recorded, was constructed in 1980 and upgraded in 1988.

AS104, Eskdalemuir, Scotland

The Eskdalemuir auxiliary seismic station became fully operational in 1962, making it the longest-operating steerable seismic array in the world.

AS002, Ushuaia, Argentina

Auxiliary seismic station AS02 at Ushuaia is a new facility installed for the purposes of Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty verification. It is the southernmost IMS station on the American continent.

AS043, Parapat, Indonesia

Parapat auxiliary seismic station AS43 is located close to Lake Toba in North Sumatra. It takes approximately four hours to drive there from Medan, the closest city with flight connections to and from Jakarta.

AS048, Eilath, Israel

The International Monitoring System (IMS) auxiliary seismic station AS48 is located in southern Israel, about 12 km north of the city of Eilath at the head of the Red Sea.

AS067, Tsumeb, Namibia

The auxiliary seismic station AS67 located at Tsumeb in northeastern Namibia is one of the stations designated in the International Monitoring System (IMS) of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.

AS072, Spitsbergen, Norway

AS72 is a nine-element seismic array—that is, a spatially distributed set of seismometers all transmitting their outputs to and recorded at a Central Recording Facility — arranged in two concentric circles.

AS107, Tuckaleechee Caverns, Tennessee, United States

The original seismic station was established in 1978 by the Tennessee Earthquake Information Center (TEIC) as part of its network in cooperation with Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).

HA02, Queen Charlotte Island, Canada

At both of its sites, the hydroacoustic station employs identical so-called T-phase equipment that uses seismometers to detect hydroacoustic waves that are converted to seismic waves when they hit the shore of an island.

HA03, Juan Fernandez Islands, Chile

HA03 covers large areas of the Southern Pacific Ocean and the Southern Ocean. It is one of six IMS hydrophone stations, which utilizes an underwater microphone (hydrophone) to detect signals originating from underwater explosions.

HA06, Socorro Island, Mexico

HA06 covers large parts of the North Pacific Ocean. The hydroacoustic T-phase facilities on Socorro Island are part of a new IMS station for which the site survey was carried out in 1999.

HA09, Tristan da Cunha, United Kingdom

Tristan da Cunha hosts one of the IMS's 11 hydroacoustic stations used to detect natural and man-made phenomena in the oceans, including underwater nuclear detonations.

HA11, Wake Island, United States Territory

HA11 is located not far from where the United States conducted many atmospheric and underwater nuclear tests in the late 1950s and early 1960s, on the Bikini Atolls and Johnston Island.

IS05, Hobart, Australia

Infrasound station IS05 is located about 100 km northeast of Hobart, the island's capital, at a military training area in the village of Buckland, on Tasmania’s east coast.

IS13, Easter Island, Chile

The construction of IS13, undertaken by the Chilean Commission for Nuclear Energy (CCHEN) in cooperation with the PTS, was completed in only eleven months, between January and November 2004.

IS18, Qaanaaq, Greenland, Denmark

Qaanaaq infrasound station IS18 is the northernmost infrasound station in the International Monitoring System (IMS), covering an area of several thousand kilometres in radius.

IS26, Freyung, Germany

IS26 was installed in 1999 as one of 60 infrasound stations of the CTBTO's International Monitoring System (IMS) to monitor the atmosphere for ultra-low sound waves emitted by nuclear explosions.

IS32, Nairobi, Kenya

The IS32 infrasonic array is a seven-element array, equipped with 18 m wind-noise reducing systems to further minimize background micro-pressure noise.

IS55, Windless Bight, Antarctica, United States

The IS55 infrasonic array is an eight-element array divided into two sub-arrays. A high performance weather station is also installed at one of the IS55 arrays.

Radionuclide Laboratory RL03, Seibersdorf, Austria

Radionuclide laboratory ATL03 is located in the small town of Seibersdorf in the province of Lower Austria, about 35 km southeast of Vienna, on the premises of the Austrian Research Centers, Seibersdorf (ARCS).

RN16, Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada

The radionuclide station RN16 is located on the periphery of Yellowknife only a few hundred meters from the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) where the IMS’s primary seismic station PS09 is also located.

RN18, Punta Arenas, Chile

RN18 is located on the campus of the Universidad de Magellanes in Punta Arenas, Chile. Although the original Treaty location was at the seashore, the current location is 20 km away and was approved as most suitable for installation.

RN23, Rarotonga, Cook Islands

The radionuclide station RN23 is located on the premises of the local meteorological bureau. To the left in the visual is the Very Small Aperture Terminal (VSAT) antenna, and to the right is the French-made ASS 500 air sampler.

RN38, Takasaki, Japan

The IMS radionuclide station RN38 is located inside the premises of the Takasaki Advanced Radiation Research Institute of JAEA on the town’s eastern outskirts.

RN40, Kuwait City, Kuwait

IMS radionuclide station RN 40 is a particularly important station for Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) verification in the Middle East, as it is currently the only radionuclide station in the region.

RN64, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Radionuclide station RN64 is located adjacent to the Physics Building on the expansive grounds of the University of Dar es Salaam.