When international countries sign treaties banning the building and testing of nuclear weapons, they need some way of making sure that everyone is complying with the terms of the treaty.

Seismology provides a means to monitor for nuclear explosions used to test and build weapons. This is because buried nuclear explosions create seismic waves which can be detected by seismographs.

The challenge of modern day seismic monitoring is to be able to detect very small nuclear explosions detonated anywhere in the world. This makes the need for seismographs all over the world even more important.