The process of locating buried landmines using the chemical signature begins with the initial leakage of the explosive chemicals from the body of the landmine. This work measured the explosive chemical signature flux from field recovered landmines on location in both Angola and Mozambique. The test method used a whole landmine placed into dry soil for three months. The landmine was then removed and the entire soil mass processed to determine the explosive signature compounds by gas chromatography. Nine different types of landmines and one UXO were tested for a total of 38 individual units. The results showed that there were four prevalent signature compounds: TNT, DNT, DNB and RDX. The magnitudes of the flux values ranged from method detection limits of 0.01 to 0.1 μg/day up to 3000 μg/day. However, the data showed a lognormal distribution where TNT mean flux was ~ 8 μg/day and DNT mean flux was ~ 1 μg/day. The variation in flux within a type of landmine was large, often spanning one to two orders of magnitude, typically from a single large value outlier. This data will provide valuable input for analysis of environmental impacts to the chemical signature of buried landmines using modern numerical simulation modeling approaches.
Category: Ammunition Management