<p>To add to David Hammen's answer.   Earth is big.   I hate to use the words "really really big" cause there are things much bigger, like the sun, but Earth is quite large.</p>

<p>Imagine what would happen if all the Nukes went off 3000 miles from you.  You're in LA, the bombs are all set off in NY.   The curvature of the Earth would prevent you from seeing much, except just barely maybe the very top spread of the mushroom cloud and some reflection of the glow and redness in the sky and you might experience a gust of wind from the blast and a short while later, some radioactive fallout and you'd begin to have a bad time within a day or a few days, but the blast probably wouldn't kill you (I'm speculating a bit, but 3000 miles is outside the immediate blast radius.   </p>

<p><a href="http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/07/the-story-of-the-tsar-bomba/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">The Tsar bomb, the biggest nuke ever set off, had a blast radius</a> of 22 miles (35 km) and it leveled a village 34 miles (55 km) away.   With the inverse square rule, 100 tsar bombs might have a blast radius 10 times that, or 220 miles and would still knock down buildings further than that.   But once you get a couple thousand miles away, even if every nuke in the world is set off, you'd survive the blast, though you'd might feel the pressure wave (wind) generated by it.</p>

<p>Now imagine instead of air separating you and all those Nukes, there's 3,000 miles of rock and metal.   You'd barely notice it.  Odds are, you wouldn't notice it at all.   There's simply not enough heat, and not enough explosive expansion to affect the Earth's core.   There would be a pressure wave for sure, but by the time it reached the surface, my guess is you wouldn't even feel it.</p>

<p>There's two kinds of pressure waves that are generated by Earthquakes.   <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-wave" rel="nofollow noreferrer">S waves</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-wave" rel="nofollow noreferrer">P waves</a>.   If you set off nukes inside the Earth's core the pressure waves would primarily be P waves, that would spread out evenly towards the surface.</p>

<p>Using David Hammen's 7 x 10<sup>18</sup> joules of energy and Earth's surface area of 5.1 x 10<sup>14</sup> square meters.  That's about 1400 joules per square meter, which sounds like a lot, but considering that it would be spread out as it travels through the Earth, and compared to local Earthquake energy, that probably wouldn't be much more than a very weak somewhere in the 1-2 on the Richter scale (very bad guess which I'll try to improve on), but based on how much energy a large earthquake has, and if the energy is divided 50% into P wave and 50% into S wave (another bad estimate), 1400 joules per square meter, after having traveled through 3,000 miles of earth would have to be very low on the Richter scale.   I'm pretty confident that no person would feel it, but as noted by Jamesqf, it might be detected by sensitive equipment.   </p>

<p>The added heat to the core would be even more negligible and I imagine that would have no measurable effect at all. </p>

<p>If someone wants to improve on this answer from a P-wave and earthquake energy perspective, I can delete mine.   The bottom line is nothing of consequence would happen.  </p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-07-05T11:33:48.520Z
2018-07-22T06:28:19.337Z
2018-07-22T06:28:19.337Z
userLTK
<p>I'll ignore the complete impossibility of getting the world's nuclear arsenal to the center of the Earth and the impossibility of exploding them all at once. The total number of nuclear weapons, including those held in reserve and those scheduled for dismantling, is about 15000, with an average explosive power of less than half a megaton of TNT. This is equivalent to about 7×10<sup>18</sup> joules of energy.</p>

<p>That's about how much energy humanity consumes every five days. Compared to other destructive events, it's about 1/5000th of the energy released by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, about 1/70000th of the energy released by the Chicxulub impactor, and about 1/30000000000000th of the energy needed to make the Earth explode into bits (the Earth's gravitational binding energy).</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-07-04T08:12:05.997Z
But what would happen? ;p
Communisty
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-07-04T09:56:39.230Z
@Communisty not much. The extreme heat would melt the bombs, uranium and plutonium would probably dissolve into the iron-nickel core and diffuse away rapidly, leaving no chance for a critical mass ever happening.
Gimelist
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-07-04T10:01:17.910Z
@Gimelist, but the question already assumes detonation i.e. the bombs would explode.
Communisty
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2018-07-05T05:46:55.377Z
@Communisty: Nothing notable would happen.  You'd probably detect vibrations with a good seismograph, but that's it.
jamesqf
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-07-04T01:03:47.093Z
2018-07-04T01:03:47.093Z
David Hammen
<p>What would the effects of detonating every single nuclear bomb currently in existence at once in the center of the earth? Would the earth simply explode into bits? Would the heat have some sort of effect on the surface?</p>

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2018-07-04T09:25:01.840Z
the only thing happening is we have solved the problem of getting rid of all the nukes.
trond hansen
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2018-07-05T12:38:39.220Z
This is relevant :) https://qntm.org/destroy
Quote from the intro "Nor is this a guide for those wanting to annihilate everything from single-celled life upwards, render Earth uninhabitable or simply conquer it. These are trivial goals in comparison. This is a guide for those who do not want the Earth to be there anymore."
Semidiurnal Simon
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-07-05T12:44:52.427Z
From the same source, "There is evidence that in the past, asteroids have hit the Earth with the explosive yield of five billion Hiroshima bombs - and such evidence is *difficult to find*."
Semidiurnal Simon
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-07-05T13:18:27.703Z
I guess if we're biting on the question, a fair following subquestion (given the eventless results to the main question): would it have any significant impact on core composition/magnetic field/etc?
JeopardyTempest
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-07-05T18:10:47.040Z
This isn't actually about earth science. It's a much better fit for [Worldbuilding SE](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com), e.g. [this question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/77751/is-it-feasible-to-build-a-bomb-big-enough-to-destroy-pluto/77754).
Spencer
CC BY-SA 4.0
2018-07-09T07:03:31.830Z
I disagree. This isn't a great question - though it has a mixture of up- and downvotes - but IMHO it's on topic here. Unlike most of the things that we say "send to Worldbuilding" about it is not hypothecating fantasy planets - it is asking a specific question about this planet (albeit probably not a "question about a problem that you have right now").
Semidiurnal Simon
<temperature><core><crust><mass-extinction>
What if we detonated the entire worlds nuclear supply in the center of the earth?
Sanskros
# What if we detonated the entire worlds nuclear supply in the center of the earth?

(Asked by: username_0 on 2018-07-03)

What would the effects of detonating every single nuclear bomb currently in existence at once in the center of the earth? Would the earth simply explode into bits? Would the heat have some sort of effect on the surface?

**Tags:** temperature, core, crust, mass-extinction

> **Comments:**
> **username_1**: the only thing happening is we have solved the problem of getting rid of all the nukes.  
> **username_2**: This is relevant :) https://qntm.org/destroy Quote from the intro "Nor is this a guide for those wanting to annihilate everything from single-celled life upwards, render Earth uninhabitable or simply conquer it. These are trivial goals in comparison. This is a guide for those who do not want the Earth to be there anymore."  
> **username_2**: From the same source, "There is evidence that in the past, asteroids have hit the Earth with the explosive yield of five billion Hiroshima bombs - and such evidence is *difficult to find*."  
> **username_3**: I guess if we're biting on the question, a fair following subquestion (given the eventless results to the main question): would it have any significant impact on core composition/magnetic field/etc?  
> **username_4**: This isn't actually about earth science. It's a much better fit for [Worldbuilding SE](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com), e.g. [this question](https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/77751/is-it-feasible-to-build-a-bomb-big-enough-to-destroy-pluto/77754).  
> **username_2**: I disagree. This isn't a great question - though it has a mixture of up- and downvotes - but IMHO it's on topic here. Unlike most of the things that we say "send to Worldbuilding" about it is not hypothecating fantasy planets - it is asking a specific question about this planet (albeit probably not a "question about a problem that you have right now").  

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## 2 answers

### Answer by username_6 on 2018-07-04. Score: 8 | Accepted answer

I'll ignore the complete impossibility of getting the world's nuclear arsenal to the center of the Earth and the impossibility of exploding them all at once. The total number of nuclear weapons, including those held in reserve and those scheduled for dismantling, is about 15000, with an average explosive power of less than half a megaton of TNT. This is equivalent to about 7×1018 joules of energy.

That's about how much energy humanity consumes every five days. Compared to other destructive events, it's about 1/5000th of the energy released by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, about 1/70000th of the energy released by the Chicxulub impactor, and about 1/30000000000000th of the energy needed to make the Earth explode into bits (the Earth's gravitational binding energy).

> **Comments:**
> **username_7**: But what would happen? ;p  
> **username_8**: @username_7 not much. The extreme heat would melt the bombs, uranium and plutonium would probably dissolve into the iron-nickel core and diffuse away rapidly, leaving no chance for a critical mass ever happening.  
> **username_7**: @username_8, but the question already assumes detonation i.e. the bombs would explode.  
> **username_9**: @username_7: Nothing notable would happen.  You'd probably detect vibrations with a good seismograph, but that's it.  

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### Answer by username_5 on 2018-07-05. Score: 3

To add to username_6 username_6's answer. Earth is big. I hate to use the words "really really big" cause there are things much bigger, like the sun, but Earth is quite large.

Imagine what would happen if all the Nukes went off 3000 miles from you. You're in LA, the bombs are all set off in NY. The curvature of the Earth would prevent you from seeing much, except just barely maybe the very top spread of the mushroom cloud and some reflection of the glow and redness in the sky and you might experience a gust of wind from the blast and a short while later, some radioactive fallout and you'd begin to have a bad time within a day or a few days, but the blast probably wouldn't kill you (I'm speculating a bit, but 3000 miles is outside the immediate blast radius.

[The Tsar bomb, the biggest nuke ever set off, had a blast radius](http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2013/07/the-story-of-the-tsar-bomba/) of 22 miles (35 km) and it leveled a village 34 miles (55 km) away. With the inverse square rule, 100 tsar bombs might have a blast radius 10 times that, or 220 miles and would still knock down buildings further than that. But once you get a couple thousand miles away, even if every nuke in the world is set off, you'd survive the blast, though you'd might feel the pressure wave (wind) generated by it.

Now imagine instead of air separating you and all those Nukes, there's 3,000 miles of rock and metal. You'd barely notice it. Odds are, you wouldn't notice it at all. There's simply not enough heat, and not enough explosive expansion to affect the Earth's core. There would be a pressure wave for sure, but by the time it reached the surface, my guess is you wouldn't even feel it.

There's two kinds of pressure waves that are generated by Earthquakes. [S waves](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-wave) and [P waves](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P-wave). If you set off nukes inside the Earth's core the pressure waves would primarily be P waves, that would spread out evenly towards the surface.

Using username_6 username_6's 7 x 1018 joules of energy and Earth's surface area of 5.1 x 1014 square meters. That's about 1400 joules per square meter, which sounds like a lot, but considering that it would be spread out as it travels through the Earth, and compared to local Earthquake energy, that probably wouldn't be much more than a very weak somewhere in the 1-2 on the Richter scale (very bad guess which I'll try to improve on), but based on how much energy a large earthquake has, and if the energy is divided 50% into P wave and 50% into S wave (another bad estimate), 1400 joules per square meter, after having traveled through 3,000 miles of earth would have to be very low on the Richter scale. I'm pretty confident that no person would feel it, but as noted by username_9, it might be detected by sensitive equipment.

The added heat to the core would be even more negligible and I imagine that would have no measurable effect at all.

If someone wants to improve on this answer from a P-wave and earthquake energy perspective, I can delete mine. The bottom line is nothing of consequence would happen.


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