North Korean nuclear test sets off years of earthquakes

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HomeNewsAll NewsNorth Korean nuclear test sets off years of earthquakesBack To All News

NewsAsia/Pacific

North Korean nuclear test sets off years of earthquakes
Seismic activity around the Punggye-ri test site has increased since a large nuclear explosion in 2017

17 Sep 20262:00 PM ETByRichard Stone

Between 2006 and ’17, North Korea conducted six nuclear tests at the Punggye-ri site beneath Mount Mantap.Iliya Pitalev/Sputnik via AP

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After North Korea detonated its largest nuclear device beneath Mount Mantap in 2017, scientists weren’t surprised to detect a few earthquakes in the immediate aftermath of the underground test. A massive explosion fractures and deforms surrounding rock, typically triggering small aftershocks that fade away quickly as the crust adjusts.
But years later, the crust around the Punggye-ri test site was still restless, according to a study published today in Science. Rather than fading away, earthquake activity increased over the following years, the researchers report. Even in 2025, small earthquakes were occurring along two suspected faults near Mount Mantap, some as far as 20 to 30 kilometers from the test site.
The finding adds a striking example to a growing catalog of human-induced earthquakes. Injecting wastewater from oil and gas operations, mining, filling reservoirs, geothermal energy projects, and subsurface nuclear detonations have all been shown capable of triggering earthquakes. What is unusual at Mount Mantap is the longevity: The nuclear tests appear to have triggered ruptures on already stressed crust over years.
“It’s completely different from our expectation or textbook cases,” says study co-author Kwang-Hee Kim, a seismologist at Pusan National University. Normally, he says, earthquake activity triggered by a large explosion “will decay with time.”
North Korea conducted six underground nuclear tests at Punggye-ri between 2006 and ’17. The final explosion, estimated to be the equivalent of 100 to 250 kilotons of TNT, registered as a magnitude 6.3 seismic event by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). About 8 minutes later, a magnitude 4.1 event was interpreted as the collapse of its underground blast cavity. Apart from an isolated small earthquake soon afterward, there were no immediate aftershocks.
Sustained activity in the area began about 3 weeks later. In 2018, Columbia University seismologist Won-Young Kim and his colleagues located 13 posttest earthquakes along a roughly 700-meter fault near the test site. They concluded the blast had changed stress levels in the surrounding rock and predicted it could continue to adjust. But the seismic activity would prove to be far more persistent.
The new study, led by Kwang-Hee Kim and geophysicist Xingli Fan of the Chengdu University of Technology, found a yearslong intensification of seismic activity, organized along broader fault zones. The researchers searched through seismic recordings collected in China and South Korea between 2008 and ’25, using the wave forms of known earthquakes as templates to find much fainter events buried in background noise. They identified 1399 earthquakes near the Punggye-ri site and determined precise locations for 955. Most were tiny earthquakes below magnitude 2. But instead of fading after 2017, their frequency increased through 2025, as did the total seismic moment released by the sequence—the combined size of all the earthquakes.
The earthquakes also revealed a geographic pattern. They occurred along two roughly parallel lines running north-northwest. One follows the projected continuation of a fault mapped south of Mount Mantap decades ago; the other has no known surface trace. Unable to visit North Korea, Kwang-Hee Kim and his colleagues recognized the connection only after combing decades-old geological maps.
Explaining the lingering activity is a challenge. The researchers’ leading idea is that the nuclear tests repeatedly damaged the shallow rock around Mount Mantap, shifting stresses onto preexisting faults that were already close to rupturing. The mountain’s weight and rugged shape may also have determined which faults were most vulnerable: Modeling by the team found unusually large stress variations in places where many of the earthquakes cluster.
Faults can be poised to slip even when they appear dormant, says Zhigang Peng, a seismologist at the Georgia Institute of Technology who studies earthquake triggering. Human activities such as fluid injection can similarly push faults that are “subcritical, but not far from failure” toward rupture, he says.
But that does not fully explain the long delay. The brief stress pulse carried outward by seismic waves should have triggered ruptures almost immediately. The longer lasting stress change left behind by the nuclear blast, meanwhile, should decline rapidly with distance, making it difficult to account for earthquakes tens of kilometers away.
Another possibility is that slower moving fluids played a role, says USGS geophysicist Walter Mooney. Groundwater percolating through blast-damaged fractures may have weakened the faults, he says. The authors say they considered the idea but lack evidence for it.
For now, the mechanism remains uncertain. “The jury’s still out,” Mooney says. Even the study’s authors are cautious. “There are still many, many things I cannot explain,” Kwang-Hee Kim says.
Other researchers have also found evidence for the prolonged seismic activity around the test site. In June, seismologist Mengyi Ren of the China Earthquake Administration and colleagues reported in Seismological Research Letters that they had uncovered 647 previously undetected earthquakelike events from 2016 to ’24, including months in 2021 and ’22 with more than 30 events. But the studies differ: Ren’s team saw the earthquakes migrate toward the test site, whereas the new study found no clear migration.
For Kwang-Hee Kim, the result echoes an earlier investigation. In 2018, he and colleagues linked South Korea’s magnitude 5.5 Pohang earthquake to fluid injection at a geothermal project that activated a preexisting fault. Unsettled Mount Mantap, he says, suggests a very different kind of human disturbance can have a long seismic afterlife.

doi: 10.1126/science.zprbhzw

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Richard Stone

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Richard Stone contributes to Science as its senior international correspondent with a focus on Asia. His writing has featured datelines from challenging reporting environments such as Cuba, Iran, and North Korea

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Seismic activity around the Punggye-ri test site beneath Mount Mantap has increased significantly following North Korea's largest nuclear explosion in 2017, contradicting the expectation that post-explosion seismic events would quickly dissipate. Between 2006 and 2017, North Korea conducted six underground nuclear tests at the site, culminating in an explosion estimated at 100 to 250 kilotons of TNT, which registered as a magnitude 6.3 seismic event. While immediate aftershocks were expected from the fracturing of surrounding rock, this new research indicates that the crust around the test site remained restless for years afterward. Researchers discovered that seismic activity continued to intensify through 2025, with small earthquakes occurring along suspected faults, some up to 20 to 30 kilometers away from the test site.

This finding contributes to a growing body of evidence linking human activities, including subsurface nuclear detonations, to the triggering of earthquakes, with the particular peculiarity at Mount Mantap being the longevity of the seismic effects. Unlike typical instances where blast-induced activity decays over time, the study found a yearslong intensification of seismic activity organized along broader fault zones. Led by Kwang-Hee Kim and Xingli Fan, the research team analyzed seismic recordings from China and South Korea between 2008 and 2025, using known earthquake waveforms as templates to detect fainter events buried in background noise. They identified 1399 earthquakes near the Punggye-ri site and precisely located 955 of them, most of which were minor events below magnitude 2. Crucially, the frequency of these earthquakes increased through 2025, as did the total seismic moment released by the sequence, demonstrating sustained activity rather than a singular, immediate response.

The identified seismic events also revealed a distinct geographic pattern, occurring along two roughly parallel lines running north-northwest. These lines correspond either to the projected continuation of a fault mapped south of Mount Mantap decades prior or to a structure with no known surface trace, a connection recognized by the researchers after consulting decades-old geological maps. The mechanism explaining this prolonged activity remains uncertain. The researchers hypothesize that the nuclear tests repeatedly damaged the shallow rock around Mount Mantap, thereby shifting stress onto preexisting faults that were already near failure. The mountain’s physical characteristics may have also influenced which faults were susceptible. While the immediate stress pulse from the blast should have caused rapid decay, the long-lasting stress change left behind appears to have persisted. Other possibilities considered by the team included the influence of slower-moving fluids, where groundwater percolating through blast-damaged fractures might have weakened faults, although the authors noted a lack of direct evidence for this mechanism. Consequently, the precise mechanism responsible for the long delay between the seismic event and the earthquake is still undetermined.