RADIOACTIVITY RELEASED BY UNDERGROUND EXPERIMENT
NEAR
CARLSBAD, NEW MEXICO
The first nuclear detonation in the Commission's Plowshare
program to develop peaceful uses for nuclear explosives was
Project Gnome, a multipurpose experiment in a salt bed 25 miles
southeast of Carlsbad, New Mexico.
The nuclear device, with a
yield of about three kilotons, was detonated at 12:00 noon, MST,
on December 10, 1961,.1,200 feet underground.
The detonation raised a small cloud of dust from the surface.
Shortly, thereafter, a white vapor was seen issuing from the mouth
of the 1,200 foot vertical shaft.
This vapor, holding close to
the ground, was blown north-northwest, to the east of the city of
Carlsbad.
There was no evidence of venting in the vicinity of
surface ground zero.
Monitoring results demonstrated that the cloud was largely
gaseous in nature.
Although every effort had been made to mini-
mize the deposition of radioactivity in any inhabited off-site
area, small amounts of short-lived radioactivity were deposited in
the path of the cloud for the first ten miles or so.
The following is a summary of the data obtained by the U. S.
Public Health Service Off-Site Radiological Safety Organization of
the Office of Field Operations, now the Nevada Operations Office,
AEC, in the vicinity of the test site.
DOE ARCHIVES