
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Shake, Rattle, and Roll

South Korean protesters burned placards of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un during an anti-North Korea rally on January 7, 2016, in Seoul, South Korea. Kim Jong-Un claimed that North Korea had successfully tested a hydrogen bomb the previous day. (Photo: Getty Images)
Contact
- Managing Editor
- Clay Dillingham
Around 10 a.m. Pyongyang Time on Wednesday, January 6, 2016, seismic analysts around the world picked up something unusual—a 5.1-magnitude seismic event in the northeast corner of North Korea. Earthquakes of this size aren’t common on the Korean Peninsula, which likely meant the violent shaking was caused by something else: an explosion.
Enter Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Los Alamos isn’t just in the business of developing, testing, and maintaining explosives. A significant part of the Laboratory’s mission is to evaluate global seismic data to identify and locate possible nuclear explosions.