LONG-RANGE FALLOUT
FROM SEDAN AND SMALL BOY SHOTS

PHILIP W. KREY and RALPH E. FRIED
Isotopes, Inc., Westwood, New Jersey

ABSTRACT
A sampling network was established across the United States to collect
debris from the Sedan and Smail Boy shots. Gross gamma assays,
gamma-decay measurements, and gamma-spectrum and radiochemical
analyses were performed on retrieved samples. Sedan, an underground
burst, produced a cloud that was fairly homogeneous and highly
fractionated. Small Boy, a surface burst, produced a heterogeneous

cloud and even greater fractionation effects than Sedan. Molybdenum-99
in both shots behaved as a refractory material and did not represent an
ideal tracer of fission-product debris.

OBJECTIVES
In the spring of 1962, Isotopes, Inc., undertook to collect, analyze,
and characterize fallout from subsurface and surface bursts at
intermediate- and long-range downwind distances from ground zero.
The nuclear bursts studied were the Sedan and Small Boy shots in

Operation Sun Beam. Sedan was approximately a 100-kt total yield with

less than 30-kt fission; Small Boy was a low-yield surface burst.’
SAMPLING SITES

Three lines of sampling stations extending in a north—south direc-

tion were established across the country (Fig. 1). The most westerly
line for the Sedan shot consisted of 12 stations situated about 15 miles
apart at a distance of approximately 630 miles from ground zero. The
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