8 April 1998
Thanks to D


Date:         Wed, 1 Apr 1998 08:21:46 -0800 [Note date]
From: Vlad Shkurkin <shkurkin@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Subject:      Has the map been declassified?
To: Multiple recipients of list MAPHIST <MAPHIST@HARVARDA.HARVARD.EDU>

Hello MapHisters,

Someone out there has a copy...

-------------------------------------

In the late 1960s, the United States Atomic Energy
Commission, through its contractors
at the Nevada Operations Office (NVOO) were
(secretly) approached by Phillips Petroleum, or Shell,
or Standard Oil, to provide them with a detailed
three-dimensional map of the subsurface structure of
Alaska along the path of the proposed pipeline, allegedly
to identify potential seismic reinforcing which would be
needed in its construction.

In reality, these petroleum geologists owned large blocks
of gold mining stock, and they wanted to use the resulting
map to identify potential terrane contacts, which had scraped the
ocean floor and deposited gold in concentrated form along
a "lode" where the terrane contacts took place.  One such
location might have been along the north face of the Wrangel
accretion zone.

In order to justify the costs of such an endeavor, the
petroleum aggregate proposed to expand the regular
underground tests and pay for this expansion, thereby
hiding their involvement, because the tests were "Top Secret".

Satellite linked ground seismic sensors were placed
at precisely grid-oriented locations throughout Alaska.
Then a single underground explosion was detonated to
calibrate this network of sensors, which provided three-axis
signatures at each point, and transmitted this information
in real time via satellite to the large antenna array in Southern
California and then to the supercomputer complex at the California
Institute of Technology and to the special Inverse Fourier
Facility at the NVOO offices in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Some
of these sensors are still in place, to monitor the testing
activity in China and Siberia).

The calibration explosion was considered routine, but its true
extent was classified "Secret".

Publicly I believe only three "shots" were announced.
The actual number, following common Nevada Test Site
practice, was considerably more than that.

The main experiment to produce this map was the detonation
of 5 obsolete warheads (part of a program to determine
how long a warhead can be in storage), which were placed
in a precisely spaced row (a "row shot") in a specific orientation
to the Alaskan trench, and detonated at slightly different times
(milliseconds apart) to provide a focused beam of seismic
energy in the required direction, thus exciting the Alaskan trench
to act as a planar seismic energy source. (Why this was needed
was never explained to me -- I did not have the proper
security clearance).

The resulting three-dimensional map might be yet classified, and
many even deny its existence.  However, a two-dimensional
derivative was known to have showed up, and just as quickly
disappear, at the insurance offices of Lloyd's of London.
This was in the mid-1980s.

Since there was never a flurry of speculation on the market
in the 1970s of Alaskan gold mining stocks (although some
analysts might disagree), there still exists the possibility
of other mineral exploration, if they ever declassify this
terrane contact-defining map.

There was even a fall-back cover story circulated among
employees of E.G. & G., Inc., that this was an effort funded
by the United States Geological Survey, and that the
test was not conducted in Nevada for "safety reasons",
in fear that it may trigger an earthquake in Southern California.....
The USGS was also interested in the potential of detecting
deep focus earthquake precursors by measuring the effect
of having the trench behave as a wave guide for the electromagnetic
pulse generated by the thermonuclear explosions.

-----------------------------

References:

(http://www.em.doe.gov/bemr96/ainp.html)
(http://urbanlegends.miningco.com/)

Now that virtually everything is being declassified,
has anyone heard of or actually seen this map or data set?"

Cheers,

Vlad
v