By Sid Perkins
The Kursk—one of the largest submarines ever built and the pride of the Russian Navy—sank to the bottom of the Barents Sea on Aug. 12, 2000, during the Northern Fleet’s largest exercise in more than a decade. The mystery only deepened as Russian officials put forth conflicting explanations for the tragedy, which claimed 118 sailors.
Now, scientists report that analysis of the shock waves recorded at seismic stations across northern Europe indicate that the Kursk sank after onboard explosions, possibly of missile warheads or fuel. The researchers from the University of Arizona in Tucson and Los Alamos (N.M.) National Laboratory present their findings in the Jan. 23 Eos, the weekly newspaper of the American Geophysical Union in Washington, D.C.