Reply #19: Ignorance will not help you here.

[longship]

A nuke blast has a very specific seismic signature which is entirely different from "a huge pile of TNT". That's how the world's countries police nuclear poliferation. When somebody explodes a nuke, it *cannot* be hidden. That also means that when a country wants people to think they have exploded a nuke, they actually have to explode a nuke.

The seismic signature is unique to nuke blasts and is impossible to "fake". This is a physics thing.

So, yes. Signature schmignature. If the seismic signature indicates a nuke, it could *not* have been any other kind of explosion. No amount of hand-waving will change that.

on edit: This signature is why the world knew that an earlier NK blast was *not* nuclear.

You can even look at the seismic data from decades of nuclear tests, if you want to.