8 -12 August, 2016, Almaty
10:00 - 11:30, 9 August – opening of the conference

PRESS RELEASE
The conference is held in Almaty at the Data Center of the Institute of Geophysical Research of the Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Kazakhstan.
The goal of this conference is facilitation of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and other Treaties and Agreements on nuclear safety and non-proliferation, ratified by the Republic of Kazakhstan.
The tasks of the conference are exchange of information on the latest achievements in the field of creation of international and national nuclear monitoring systems, effective methods of studying the sources of recorded events, study of consequences of previously carried out nuclear tests and development of methods of On-Site Inspections as well as practical use of nuclear monitoring systems and their data for the purposes of solving applied and scientific issues.
The organizers of the conference are Ministry of Energy of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO), NORSAR Norwegian Center, Committee of Atomic Energy of France, Institute of Computational Mathematics and Mathematical Geophysics of the Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Science, Institute for Dynamics of Geospheres RAS, Institute of Geophysical Research ME RK.
Representatives of CTBT Organization (CTBTO), well-known scientists and specialists from Russia, USA, France, Norway and Great Britain will participate in the conference. It is expected that scientists and specialists from Central Asian countries will arrive for the conference, under the support of monitoring service of which the Training center in Almaty has been holding training courses for several years on modern methods of processing and interpretation of seismic data.
This conference has been held since 2000 and every even year after that. Five times (2000 – 2008) it was held in Borovoye, at the place of location of unique geophysical observatory, which has been successfully maing digital recording of nuclear tests at various nuclear test sites of the world for 50 years. Three times (2010 – 2014) the place for meeting was Kurchatov town near Semipalatinsk Test Site. Around 40 years ago “Kurchatov-Cross” a unique experimental seismic system array, infrasound and magnetic stations were built and put into operation. Today newly built and modernized stations in Borovoye and Kurchatov, along with the other new Kazakh stations, are included into the International Monitoring System created by the world society, which is set to implement control for CTBT. Kazakh segment stations along with the other stations of the world conduct recording and data exchange 24/7 with the International Center in Vienna; Kazakh national data center in Almaty constantly processes and analyzes data providing the results into other national and international centers.
It is peculiar that this conference of 2016 is held in a year of 20th anniversary since the opening of Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty for signing and year of co-chairmanship of Kazakhstan at the Conference by the Article 14 of CTBT. The conference will be held at the eve of “International day of actions against nuclear tests”, celebrated by the UN resolution under the initiative of Kazakhstan, and 25th anniversary since shutting down the Semipalatinsk Test Site on 29 of August, 1991. IT is presumed that during the presentations and professional discussions the potential of these events will be implemented at its fullest.

 

At the conference the following timely fields will be discussed:
- Progress in operative readiness of control systems of CTBT.
- Increase of effectiveness in studying the recorded events sources.
- Study of consequences of nuclear tests and on-site inspection.
- Application of the systems and data of nuclear monitoring for civil and scientific purposes.
During the time past since the previous conference in 2014, there was a nuclear test implemented in North Korea on 16.01.2016. The event is the 4th test created by the global monitoring system. The construction of this control system is nearing its end, at the same time modernization and recapitalization of the station’s components is taking place; a great attention is drawn to the modernization of calibration of seismic stations procedures and calibration of infrasound stations. International and National data centers have completed the first stage of modernization of the existing option of the operational system and the second stage of modernization of the software of automatic and interactive action especially for the infrasound signals monitoring has been started. There is a lot of work done on modernization of infrasound connection of the stations with the International Data Center. These and other issues connected with the modern condition and development of CTBT control system as well as the opinions and latest information will be shared by the participants of the conference.
For Kazakhstan, the theme of the conference is timely not only due to the development of nuclear tests and earthquakes monitoring system.
On one hand, this actuality is due to the fact that it is on the territory of Kazakhstan that one of the most active nuclear test sites during the Soviet time was created - Semipalatinsk Test Site. Besides, there are several so called “peaceful nuclear explosions” carried out on the territory of Kazakhstan. The study of the processes that take place in the Earth’s interior near the places of such tests is of great importance from the viewpoint of prediction of ecological, social and geodynamic consequences.
On the other hand, the topic of the conference touches upon the issues of using the data received by the nuclear tests monitoring system for civil and scientific purposes, mainly, to solve the seismic safety issues.
These questions are extremely important for Kazakhstan, since a significant part of the Republic’s territory is seismically active. Systematic accumulation of seismic and infrasound information raises the issues on a more active and wider attraction of these data to the special research. There are already successful examples of using such monitoring data for the purposes of solving a number of such issues as:
- assessment of seismic hazard of the site for existing, constructing and planned structures of atomic field. In Kazakhstan, such works have been implemented and still are for the areas of placing the atomic reactors with low enriched uranium (Alatau, INP; Kurchatov, NNC RK), presumed sites for the construction of NPP, Ulba Metallurgical Plant area, where a creation of international tank of low enriched uranium by IAEA is expected;
- re-consideration of seismic zoning maps. Particularly, for the territory of Kazakhstan, an earthquakes catalogue since ancient times till 2014 has been created, including the territories which were previously considered as non-seismic; this became an information basis for the creation of new maps of common seismic zoning of the territory of RK;
- local monitoring of industrial seismicity at the exploration fields, particularly in near Caspian area in Kazakhstan;
- study of regularities of preparation of epicenters of strong crustal earthquakes.
Learning about the works of leading scientists from different countries, cooperative discussion of the results will undoubtedly facilitate successful development of such an urgent and new direction of geophysical research in Kazakhstan – monitoring of nuclear tests and their consequences – as well as will discover new fields of scientific and practical application of monitoring data when solving global, regional and local issues directed on to the decreasing the risk of natural and industrial catastrophes.