On the Use of Calibration Explosions at the Former Semipalatinsk Test Site for Compiling a Travel-time Model of the Crust and Upper Mantle

Two chemical calibration explosions, conducted at the former Semipalatinsk nuclear test site in 1998 with charges of 25 tons and 100 tons TNT, have been used for developing travel-time curves and generalized one-dimensional velocity models of the crust and upper mantle of the platform region of Kazakhstan. The explosions were recorded by a number of digital seismic stations, located in Kazakhstan at distances ranging from 0 to 720ukm. The travel-time tables developed in this paper cover the phases P, Pn, Pg, S, Sn, Lg in a range of 0–740ukm and the velocity models apply to the crust down to 44ukm depth and to the mantle down to 120ukm. A comparison of the compiled travel-time tables with existing travel-time tables of CSE and IASPEI91 is presented.