I think a lot of nukes are designed to burst in the air to spread their destruction over the widest possible range (at least I think that's why). There's no reason you can't have a "bunker-buster" nuke, however - designed to penetrate into the ground before exploding. That would, in theory, take out hardened underground structures and transmit much more of the energy into the crust. Make one big enough and it might make its own fault lines. Of course, the damage on the surface (apart from seismic) would be confined to a smaller area. No reason you can't combine both...drop a bunker buster on that cluster of ICBM silos north of the city and a couple of "normal" nukes on the city itself to take out manufacturing, transportation, POL supplies, etc. Oh, yeah, don't forget some neutron bombs to kill people but leave cool facilities untouched...give your guys more to explore that way.

I reckon a geologist could figure out a good way to use a handful of bunker-busters and the Ring of Fire faults to send a good portion of the west coast into the sea, create volcanos, and cause all sorts of mayhem you couldn't get with nuclear strikes alone. I imagine that dropping bombs into the headwaters of major rivers would be a nice thing too...stop them, divert them, or at least poison them for a few thousand years.

Gee. Blowing up the world sure is fun. Isn't it?
M