North Korea nuclear tests trigger sustained seismic activity

An international research team has discovered that North Korea's underground nuclear tests have triggered a sustained increase in seismic activity near Mount Mantap. While underground explosions typically cause a temporary burst of small earthquakes that subside once testing stops, geologists found that seismicity in this region has actually increased and accelerated steadily through 2025.

Between 2006 and 2017, North Korea conducted six underground nuclear tests at the Mount Mantap site in North Hamgyong Province. Previously, the area was considered geologically stable, with no documented cortical earthquakes within a 50-kilometer radius for over a century.

Led by Xingli Fan from the Chengdu University of Technology, researchers analyzed 17 years of seismic wave data from 2008 to 2025, utilizing monitoring stations in China and South Korea. Using an advanced pattern recognition technique called matched filter detection, the team identified 1,399 small local earthquakes, challenging existing scientific assumptions regarding how the Earth responds to underground explosions.