CHAPTER 4

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
In order to completely document the hazardous fallout activity

resulting from the fission products and wranium neutron capture pro-

ducts on Operation CASTLE, one would have had to anticipate the widespread contamination that was produced. The scope of this project was

limited to documentation (primarily on land and secondarily on water)

at the shot atolls. Documentation on water, as it was done by this
project, was not practical and was discontinued after the first shot.

Fallout erations were set up in varying arrangements for Shots l,

p9 3,

4,

and

6.

When significant fallout occurred at an island after any of these
shots, it apparently began to arrive there within six minutes after
the detonation. The maximum activity per sampling time interval resulting from Shot 1 and other shots having yields of the game order of
megnitude arrived at all sampling stations during the first hour after
the detonation. Extrapolation of the beta activity has indicated
rates as high as 1.3x1014 dpn/ft*, 1 to 6 min after detonation.
The major part of the activity had arrived at a given station

within 3 to 6 hours after the detonation, with small amounts continuing to arrive up to at least 12 hours after the detonation.
Gamma dose rates due to each shot at the shot atoll 1 hour after
each shot were estimated from data collected by this project and Rad

Safe to be as followas

Shot 1:

1600 to 2900 r/hr along the northern islands, 160 to 630

r/hr on the eastern islands and 15 to 43 r/hr along the southwest
side of the atoll.
Shot 2:
1100 to 4700 rf/hr on the northwest islands close to ground

zero and 2.4 to 14 r/hr on the rest of the atoll.
Shot 3:
410 r/hr at Uncle, just west of ground zero, 10 to 125 r/hr
on the north and northeast islands, and 0.8 to 4.5 r/hr elsewhere.
160 to 440 r/hr on the north and northeast islands, and 0.1
Shot 4:

r/nr elsewhere.

Shot 6s
(At Eniwetok) Over 1000 r/hr in the immediate vicinity of
ground zero, dropping to 17 to 32 r/hr on the islands westward and
1 to 6 r/hr eastward from ground zeros

Within the atoll, there was no apvarent trend of radioactive
particle size distribution with distance, direction, or time. The

100

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