Israel conducts massive controlled blast

Israel conducted a massive controlled explosion to calibrate instruments at seismic monitoring stations worldwide, officials said.

Using 100 tons of explosives, The Geophysical Institute of Israel conducted the explosion at a site in the Negev on Wednesday.

It registered 2.7 on the Richter scale, and created a mushroom cloud that reached the height of up to 1.78 miles, or three kilometers, Haaretz reported Thursday.

Local scientists and scientists from the U.S. and France as well as journalists observed the blast.

Dr. Rami Hofstetter, head of seismology at the Geophysical Institute told the newspaper the experiment was important to study how seismic waves travel.

Testing stations located in countries such as Russia, Kazakhstan and Mongolia, all members of the International Monitoring System, were able to measure the explosion, the newspaper said.

Stations in Africa, North America, South America, Asia and Europe provide data about nuclear tests that have not been reported to the United Nations or the international community, Haaretz said.

The data was broadcast to the stations using equipment located 328 feet from the blast site and immediately transferred by satellite to the international data center located in Vienna for processing.

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