Use of Surface Snow Sampling to Estimate the Quantity of
Explosives Residues Resulting from Land Mine Detonations
THOMAS F. JENKINS, THOMAS A. RANNEY, PAUL H. MIYARES,
NICHOLAS H. COLLINS, AND ALAN D. HEWITT
INTRODUCTION
and collected residues of ERC that were deposited on
surface sand.
Background
The URI experiment was configured so that all the
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
ERC that resulted from the detonation were trapped in
(DARPA) is sponsoring research to determine whether
the barrel, and hence it was possible to obtain repre-
buried land mines can be detected by sensing the evolu-
sentative samples with little uncertainty. On the other
tion of explosives-related chemical signatures (ERC).
hand, the URI study used a block of TNT in an enclo-
Analysis of soil collected near buried mines at DARPA's
sure and hence it could be argued that it was not a good
research minefield at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri,
simulation of the detonation of a land mine under less
indicates that ERC are detectable in surface soil above
confined conditions. The Sandia NL experiments uti-
buried mines for several types of plastic-cased antiper-
lized real PMA-1A and PMA-2 land mines from Yugo-
sonnel and antitank mines (Jenkins et al. 2000). For
slavia and thus the resulting residues should mimic those
mines containing TNT as a major portion of the main
found in a real minefield. Because their experiment was
charge, 2,4-dinitrotoluene (2,4-DNT) and two environ-
conducted on sandy soil, though, it was difficult to visu-
mental transformation products of TNT (2-amino-4,6-
ally estimate the size of the area impacted, and the per-
dinitrotoluene [2-ADNT] and 4-amino-2,6-dinitrotol-
centage of the area that was sampled was quite small
uene [4-ADNT]) were generally present at higher con-
by necessity. Thus if the ERC residues were heteroge-
centrations in the surface soil than TNT itself. Tests
neously distributed, the small proportion of the area
with a prototype sensor built by Nomadics Corpora-
sampled would lead to a large uncertainty in the esti-
tion have been very promising, indicating that real-time
mates of percent of explosives remaining after detona-
detection of buried mines using this approach is feasi-
tion. Early estimates of the percentage of explosive that
ble (la Grone et al. in prep).
remains after detonation from these two studies differed
An unanswered question, however, is whether resi-
by several orders of magnitude.*
dues of ERC from detonations of mines or other types
Because of the importance of having a good esti-
of military ordnance would contaminate the vicinity
mate of the residues resulting from detonations, we pro-
with ERC to a degree that would compromise the use
posed an experiment very similar to that conducted at
of chemical sensing for this application. Two prelimi-
Sandia NL except that the experiment would be con-
nary studies were conducted to try to estimate the resi-
ducted on a snow-covered surface. The advantage of
dues of ERC that result from detonations of explosives
the snow cover was threefold. First, the snow cover
containing TNT. Dr. Jimmie Oxley and Dr. James Smith
made it possible to visually estimate the surface area
from the Chemistry Department at the University of
Rhode Island (URI) detonated blocks of TNT in bar-
rels containing sand and analyzed the sand for residues
*
Personal communication, J. Oxley, Chemistry Department,
of ERC. James Phelan and others at Sandia National
University of Rhode Island, Kingston, Rhode Island, April 2000;
Laboratories (Sandia NL), Albuquerque, New Mexico,
J. Phelan, Sandia National Laboratories, Albuquerque, New
detonated several land mines in an arid environment
Mexico, April 2000.
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