The Joint Geological and Geophysical Research Station (JGGRS) is a seismic monitoring and

nuclear detonation detection system A nuclear detonation detection system (NDDS) is a device or a series of devices that are able to indicate, and pinpoint a nuclear explosion has occurred as well as the direction of the explosion. The main purpose of these devices or systems was to ...

operated by the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Air force, air service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is one of the six United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Tracing its ori ...

(USAF) in cooperation with

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. Located at the foot of ANZAC Hill in

Alice Springs Alice Springs () is a town in the Northern Territory, Australia; it is the third-largest settlement after Darwin, Northern Territory, Darwin and Palmerston, Northern Territory, Palmerston. The name Alice Springs was given by surveyor William ...

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

, it was established in 1955 as part of a global network to identify clandestine underground nuclear explosions. The station is affiliated with the Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) and additionally provides seismic data to support Australian hazard-monitoring programs. It is one of several acknowledged joint U.S.–Australian

military intelligence Military intelligence is a military discipline that uses information collection and analysis List of intelligence gathering disciplines, approaches to provide guidance and direction to assist Commanding officer, commanders in decision making pr ...

installations.

History

The Joint Geological and Geophysical Research Station (JGGRS) was established in 1955 as a

(USAF) seismic outpost for detecting clandestine

nuclear weapons testing Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the performance of nuclear weapons and the effects of Nuclear explosion, their explosion. Nuclear testing is a sensitive political issue. Governments have often performed tests to si ...

. Decades later, during the

Fraser government The Fraser government was the federal executive government of Australia led by Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser. It was made up of members of a Liberal–Country party coalition in the Australian Parliament from November 1975 to March 1983. Init ...

led by

Prime Minister of Australia The prime minister of Australia is the head of government of the Commonwealth of Australia. The prime minister is the chair of the Cabinet of Australia and thus the head of the Australian Government, federal executive government. Under the pr ...

Malcolm Fraser John Malcolm Fraser (; 21 May 1930 – 20 March 2015) was an Australian politician who served as the 22nd prime minister of Australia from 1975 to 1983. He held office as the leader of the Liberal Party of Australia, and is the fourth List of ...

, the facility’s joint-operation arrangements with Australia were formalised. Former Prime Minister

Bob Hawke Robert James Lee Hawke (9 December 1929 – 16 May 2019) was an Australian politician and trade unionist who served as the 23rd prime minister of Australia from 1983 to 1991. He held office as the Australian Labor Party, leader of the La ...

argued that sites such as JGGRS and Pine Gap should not be cited as evidence of American

nuclear deterrence Deterrence theory refers to the scholarship and practice of how threats of using force by one party can convince another party to refrain from initiating some other course of action. The topic gained increased prominence as a military strategy d ...

unless Australia also contributed tangible support, for example by hosting the enabling infrastructure. The station was initially operated by the United States Air Force in partnership with the Australian Bureau of Mineral Resources (BMR), which later evolved into

Geoscience Australia Geoscience Australia is a statutory agency of the Government of Australia that carries out geoscientific research. The agency is the government's technical adviser on aspects of geoscience, and serves as the repository of geographic and geolo ...

. The BMR described JGGRS in 1990 as: Author Tom Gilling, writing in ''Project Rainfall: The Secret History of Pine Gap'', was cited by ''Alice Springs News'' as warning of an “existential threat to Alice Springs” arising from the proximity of Pine Gap and JGGRS. M. R. A. Ström, in ''The Role of the Defence Sector in the Regional Economy of Central Australia'' for

Australian National University The Australian National University (ANU) is a public university, public research university and member of the Group of Eight (Australian universities), Group of Eight, located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. Its main campus in Acton, A ...

, concluded that JGGRS was located for strategic rather than economic reasons and provided minimal direct benefit to the host community. It is one of four publicly acknowledged joint American-Australian

installations. The others include Joint Defence Facility Pine Gap in nearby

Hugh Hugh is the English-language variant of the masculine given name , itself the Old French variant of '' Hugo (name)">Hugo'', a short form of Continental Germanic Germanic name">given names beginning in the element "mind, spirit" (Old English ). ...

, Naval Communication Station Harold E. Holt in Exmouth, Western Australia and the Australian Defence Satellite Communications Station (ADSCS) near Kojarena, Western Australia.

Administration

Australian and U.S. officials agreed in 1978 that Bureau of Mineral Resources personnel could take part in station operations. A second Exchange of Notes in 1984 amended the agreement, refining security and data-sharing procedures. On 15 February 2007 the Minister for Defence,

Brendan Nelson Brendan John Nelson (born 19 August 1958) is an Australian business leader, physician and former politician. He served as the federal Leader of the Opposition from 2007 to 2008, going on to serve as Australia's senior diplomat to the European ...

, stated that the station was “jointly operated by Geoscience Australia and the U.S. Air Force.” Public information issued by Geoscience Australia—and analyses by Richard Tanter—continued to list the Air Force Technical Applications Center (AFTAC) and Geoscience Australia as co-managers of the site. Tanter’s 2021 field research, however, reported that no Australian staff hold operational authority and that the station is administered entirely by AFTAC’s 709th Technical Maintenance Squadron, Detachment 421. According to the U.S. Air Force, Detachment 421 is responsible for the maintenance, security and daily administration of JGGRS.

Function and design

JGGRS is a monitoring station for nuclear incidents used by the United States. The facility is also a comprehensive seismological observatory, recording

earthquakes An earthquakealso called a quake, tremor, or tembloris the shaking of the Earth's surface resulting from a sudden release of energy in the lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from those so weak they c ...

volcanic eruptions A volcanic eruption occurs when material is expelled from a volcanic vent or fissure. Several types of volcanic eruptions have been distinguished by volcanologists. These are often named after famous volcanoes where that type of behavior h ...

and man-made

explosions An explosion is a rapid expansion in volume of a given amount of matter associated with an extreme outward release of energy, usually with the generation of high temperatures and release of high-pressure gases. Explosions may also be generate ...

. Data from JGGRS is immediately transferred to American AFTAC facilities at

Patrick Space Force Base Patrick Space Force Base is a United States Space Force installation located between Satellite Beach and Cocoa Beach, in Brevard County, Florida, United States. It is named in honor of Major General Mason Patrick, United States Army Air Corps, ...

Brevard County, Florida Brevard County ( ) is a county in the U.S. state of Florida. It is on the Atlantic coast of eastern Central Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 606,612, making it the 10th-most populated county in Florida. The official county s ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

. The same stream is then forwarded to Geoscience Australia and the

Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO) is an international organization that will be established upon the entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, a Convention that outlaws nuclear test explosions. I ...

(CTBTO) in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

. Up to twenty

boreholes A borehole is a narrow shaft bored in the ground, either vertically or horizontally. A borehole may be constructed for many different purposes, including the extraction of water ( drilled water well and tube well), other liquids (such as petr ...

were created around Schwarz Crescent. Each houses a

broadband In telecommunications, broadband or high speed is the wide-bandwidth (signal processing), bandwidth data transmission that exploits signals at a wide spread of frequencies or several different simultaneous frequencies, and is used in fast Inter ...

seismometer A seismometer is an instrument that responds to ground displacement and shaking such as caused by quakes, volcanic eruptions, and explosions. They are usually combined with a timing device and a recording device to form a seismograph. The out ...

buried to depths of about 30 metres (98 ft) that feed continuous waveform data to Detachment 421’s operations centre, as reported by

Engineers Australia Engineers Australia (EA), known formally as the Institution of Engineers, Australia, is an Australian professional body and Non-profit organization, not-for-profit organisation whose purpose is to advance the science and practice of engineerin ...

. On 3 September 2017, JGGRS was the first Western-allied intelligence monitoring facility to detect that year's nuclear weapons test by

North Korea North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders China and Russia to the north at the Yalu River, Yalu (Amnok) an ...

at the

Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site () was the only known nuclear test site of North Korea. Nuclear tests were conducted at the site in October 2006, May 2009, February 2013, January 2016, September 2016, and September 2017. Geography The s ...

, which was first detected by

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

Mudanjiang Mudanjiang (; Manchu language, Manchu: ''Mudan bira''), postal romanization, alternately romanized as Mutankiang, is a prefecture-level city in the southeast part of Heilongjiang province, People's Republic of China. It was called ''Botankou'' un ...

References

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Pacific Air Forces The Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) is a List of Major Commands of the United States Air Force, Major Command (MAJCOM) of the United States Air Force and is also the air component command of the United States Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM). PAC ...

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The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

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Flinders University Flinders University, established as The Flinders University of South Australia is a public university, public research university based in Adelaide, South Australia, with a footprint extending across a number of locations in South Australia and ...

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Minister for Defence (Australia) The Minister for Defence is the minister of state of the Commonwealth of Australia charged with overseeing the organisation, implementation, and formulation of strategic policy in defence and military matters as the head of the Department of De ...

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Allen & Unwin George Allen & Unwin was a British publishing company formed in 1911 when Sir Stanley Unwin purchased a controlling interest in George Allen & Co. It became one of the leading publishers of the twentieth century and established an Australian ...

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Australasian Legal Information Institute The Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII) is an institution operated jointly by the Faculties of Law of the University of Technology Sydney and the University of New South Wales. Its public policy purpose is to improve access to just ...

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Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) is the department of the Australian government responsible for foreign policy and international relations, development aid (under the name Australian Aid), consular services, overseas trad ...

, series= 984ATS 9 , date=17 February 1984 , url=https://www.info.dfat.gov.au/Info/Treaties/Treaties.nsf/AllDocIDs/5096FBF5832FB66DCA256C8E0025B826 , access-date=2025-05-13, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050720040508/https://www.info.dfat.gov.au/Info/Treaties/Treaties.nsf/AllDocIDs/5096FBF5832FB66DCA256C8E0025B826 , archive-date=2005-07-20 1955 establishments in Australia Australian Defence Force Australian intelligence agencies Australia–United States military relations Buildings and structures in Alice Springs Earth stations in the Northern Territory MacDonnell Region Military installations established in 1955 Military installations in the Northern Territory Military installations of the United States in Australia UKUSA listening stations

History

Administration

Function and design

See also

References