SEOUL, Jan. 10 (UPI) -- North Korea's 2009 nuclear test occurred just 1.2 miles from its first atomic test in 2006, U.S.-based scientists said Sunday.
The epicenter of the 2009 test was determined by analyzing seismic waves created by the two blasts and recorded at nine seismic stations in Japan, South Korea and China, said Lianxing Wen, who teaches geophysics at the State University of New York in Stony Brook.
Wen and a graduate student, Hui Long, said they narrowed the margin of error on the May 5 test site to within 153 yards, compared with a 2.3-mile margin of error determined by the U.S. Geological Survey.
The findings were published in the January edition of Seismological Research Letters of the Seismological Society of America.
The findings could help Asian monitors more quickly pinpoint the locations of any future nuclear tests by North Korea, Yonhap News Agency reported Sunday.
