appConfigEntityId

bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

isVideo

articlePageQuery

article

articleSchemaContent

content

hooksArticlePageAdvertisementConfigArticle

hooksArticlePageFloatingButtonConfigArticle

appConfig

filter

json

liveArticle

Shi Huang

North Korea’s underground nuclear tests have triggered a chain of seismic events, activating ancient fault lines that stretch towards one of the most dangerous volcanoes on Earth, about 100km (62 miles) away, according to a paper published by the journal Science.
The joint Chinese and South Korean study, which appeared on Thursday, found that the five nuclear explosions conducted between 2013 and 2017 at the Punggye-ri test site beneath Mount Mantap fundamentally altered the region’s geological stability.
Instead of fading quickly, the earthquake activity had not only persisted for nearly a decade, it had also steadily intensified, the researchers found. It is now propagating along two distinct parallel fault zones heading directly towards the China-North Korea border.
At the end of those fault lines is Changbai Mountain, known on the Korean peninsula as Mount Paektu, a dormant but restless volcano that had its last major eruption in AD946 – one of the largest on the planet in the past 2,000 years.
“Our paper concerns the delayed reactivation of pre-existing faults and the prolonged seismicity within several tens of kilometres of Mount Mantap,” corresponding author Kwang-hee Kim, from Pusan National University in South Korea, told the South China Morning Post.

On whether the tests could disturb the massive volcano, Kim said that “the short answer is that an influence on the volcanic system of Mount Paektu is physically conceivable, but it has not been demonstrated by observations”.
“Based on the published studies that I am aware of, there is currently no direct observational evidence that the … underground nuclear tests – or the subsequent earthquakes around Mount Mantap – changed volcanic activity at Mount Paektu or increased the likelihood of an eruption,” he said.
Cold War-era research – by the United States at the Nevada National Security Site and the Soviet Union at its Semipalatinsk Test Site in Kazakhstan – indicates that explosion-induced seismic activity generally lasts from a few days to a few weeks, is mostly confined to the vicinity of the epicentre and decays rapidly.
But North Korea’s nuclear test site is different.
In 2017, the last and largest nuclear test explosion at the Mount Mantap site was estimated to have a yield of 100-250 kilotonnes of TNT – about seven to 17 times the power of the atomic bomb the US used to destroy Hiroshima in 1945.
Before this nuclear test, the global seismic catalogue showed no earthquake records within a 50km radius of the area. Afterwards, seismic activity increased significantly. In May the following year, North Korea announced it was dismantling the Punggye-ri site.
However, until May 2025, when the experimental data collection ended, both the earthquake occurrence rate and the seismic moment release rate – the total energy released by earthquakes over time – in the region continued to rise.
The Chinese and South Korean researchers conducted high-precision relocation of the 955 recorded seismic sources and found that seismic events after 2017 delineated two nearly parallel structural zones extending north-northwest from the test site.
Along these structural belts, seismic events form a coherent fault-scale structure rather than a diffuse earthquake swarm, suggesting that they were caused by the large-scale nuclear tests rather than occurring randomly, according to the paper.
“Our observations indicate that repeated underground explosions modified the local stress field and progressively damaged the shallow crust, easing the delayed reactivation of pre-existing structural weaknesses rather than producing only short-lived, localised responses,” it said.

“A 2016 study by Yonsei University in South Korea estimated the dynamic stresses that hypothetical large underground nuclear explosions could produce at the surface and within the magmatic system of Mount Paektu,” Kim said.
“Their study demonstrated a possible physical mechanism but it did not observe an actual volcanic response to a nuclear test.”
Asked about his research, Tae-Kyung Hong, author of the 2016 paper, said “the exact situation at Mount Paektu is still unclear”.
“This is because there are many limitations in the investigation of the Mount Paektu area. The exact state of the volcanic magma chamber is still unclear,” he said in an email.
According to ancient Japanese and Korean historical records, volcanic ash from the AD946 eruption of Changbai Mountain drifted as far as Nara, falling like heavy snow in November.
Several centimetres of ash accumulated in northern Japan, while in the Korean capital Goryeo and its Japanese counterpart Kyoto, a continuous drum-like roar could be heard throughout the winter and even into the following spring.
The eruption also produced a pyroclastic flow – a fast-moving, superheated avalanche of hot gas, ash, and rock fragments – of up to 100 metres (328 feet) thick that formed around the volcanic crater, eventually filling with rainwater to create what is now known as Heaven Lake at the mountain’s summit.
Passionate about science? Dive deeper with the Dark Matters newsletter, a weekly in-depth analysis on China’s rise in science, technology and military that goes beneath the surface. Sign up for free now.


North Korea’s nuclear tests awaken fault lines pointing to huge volcano at China border

Chinese paint cuts wall temperature by 25 degrees Celsius in summer test: report

Could Chinese explorers have settled New Zealand before the Maori?

Scientists trace half the DNA in Xinjiang’s oldest tombs to Yellow River farmers

Science

Changbai Mountain is a dormant volcano that had its last major eruption in AD946, one of the largest recorded in the past 2,000 years. Photo: Getty Images

The two newly formed seismic belts identified by the researchers. Each dot represents an earthquake, with the larger the circle, the greater the magnitude. The star indicates the location of a nuclear test site. Photo: Handout

Maps showing the location of North Korea’s nuclear tests. Photo: Science

Governors Bay, off South Island, New Zealand, could have been a hub for Chinese business trading ships in the 15th century, according to independent researcher Sheng-Wei Wang. Photo: Shutterstock

A statue of the Chinese admiral Zheng He stands in Kunming, Yunnan province, China. Photo: Shutterstock

A Chinese anchor consisting of a central wooden bar connected to two huge rocks. Photo: T.C. Bell

A massive rock on New Zealand’s North Island bears an elephant petroglyph and linear script. Photo: T.C. Bell

A photo of the Korotangi, a serpentine stone bird discovered in 1878. Photo: Auckland Council Libraries

A screenshot of a 3D scan of a rock discovered on New Zealand’s South Island. Photo: Robert Jones

The Hami oasis in China’s Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region is nestled between the Tianshan Mountains and the Gobi Desert. Photo: Shutterstock

Painted pottery jars are among the objects unearthed at Tianshanbeilu cemetery in Xinjiang, China. Photo: Handout

China uses 100,000 home-grown AI chips to build leading weather forecast system

A visitor views China’s 100,000-card AI supercluster Sugon 8000 during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference on July 20 in Shanghai. Photo: VCG via Getty Images

News

China

Researchers find evidence of persistent earthquake activity that has also steadily intensified along two distinct paths


Researchers find evidence of persistent earthquake activity that has also steadily intensified along two distinct paths.


North Korea

South Korea

North Korea’s nuclear tests awaken fault lines pointing to huge volcano at China border

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Researchers find evidence of persistent earthquake activity that has also steadily intensified along two distinct paths

Researchers find evidence of persistent earthquake activity that has also steadily intensified along two distinct paths