Nuclear Explosions
The energy released by nuclear weapons is traditionally expressed in terms of the energy stored in a kiloton or megaton of the conventional explosive trinitrotoluene (TNT).
A rule of thumb equivalence from seismology used in the study of nuclear proliferation asserts that a one kiloton nuclear explosion creates a seismic signal with a magnitude of approximately 4.0. This in turn leads to the equation
where is the mass of the explosive TNT that is quoted for comparison (relative to megatons Mt).
Such comparison figures are not very meaningful. As with earthquakes, during an underground explosion of a nuclear weapon, only a small fraction of the total amount of energy transformed ends up being radiated as seismic waves. Therefore, a seismic efficiency has to be chosen for a bomb that is quoted as a comparison. Using the conventional specific energy of TNT (4.184 MJ/kg), the above formula implies the assumption that about 0.5% of the bomb's energy is converted into radiated seismic energy . For real underground nuclear tests, the actual seismic efficiency achieved varies significantly and depends on the site and design parameters of the test.
Read more about this topic: Moment Magnitude Scale
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