Premium
The 2013 Russian fireball largest ever detected by CTBTO infrasound sensors
Author(s) -
Le Pichon Alexis,
Ceranna Lars,
Pilger Christoph,
Mialle Pierrick,
Brown David,
Herry Pascal,
Brachet Nicolas
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1002/grl.50619
Subject(s) - infrasound , context (archaeology) , explosive material , seismology , event (particle physics) , globe , meteorology , geology , environmental science , geography , physics , astrophysics , acoustics , paleontology , archaeology , medicine , ophthalmology
On 15 February 2013, a large Earth‐impacting fireball disintegrated over the Ural Mountains. This extraordinary event is, together with the 1908 Tunguska fireball, among the most energetic events ever instrumentally recorded. It generated infrasound returns, after circling the globe, at distances up to ~85,000 km, and was detected at 20 infrasonic stations of the global International Monitoring System (IMS). For the first time since the establishment of the IMS infrasound network, multiple arrivals involving waves that traveled twice round the globe have been clearly identified. A preliminary estimate of the explosive energy using empirical period‐yield scaling relations gives a value of 460 kt of TNT equivalent. In the context of the future verification of the Comprehensive Nuclear‐Test‐Ban Treaty, this event provides a prominent milestone for studying in detail infrasound propagation around the globe for almost 3 days as well as for calibrating the performance of the IMS network.