Surveillance network built to spot secret nuclear tests yields surprise scientific boon - The Washington Post
▻http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/surveillance-network-built-to-spot-secret-nuclear-tests-yields-surprise-scientific-boon/2014/01/01/ea9c126e-6f3a-11e3-b405-7e360f7e9fd2_print.html?hpid=z3
The engineers who designed the world’s first truly planetary surveillance network two decades ago envisioned it as a way to detect illegal nuclear weapons tests. Today, the nearly completed International Monitoring System is proving adept at tasks its inventors never imagined. The system’s scores of listening stations continuously eavesdrop on Earth itself, offering clues about man-made and natural disasters as well as a window into some of nature’s most mysterious processes.