Yucca Flat
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c8/NTS_Areas_Yucca_Flats.png/260px-NTS_Areas_Yucca_Flats.png)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/97/Yucca_Flat.jpg/330px-Yucca_Flat.jpg)
Yucca Flat is a closed desert
Yucca Flat has been called "the most irradiated, nuclear-blasted spot on the face of the earth".
Geology
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/37/Nevada_Test_Site_craters.jpg/220px-Nevada_Test_Site_craters.jpg)
The open, sandy
Hundreds of subsidence craters dot the desert floor. A crater could develop when an underground nuclear explosion vaporized surrounding bedrock and sediment. The vapor cooled to liquid lava and pooled at the bottom of the cavity created by the explosion. Cracked rock and sediment layers above the explosion often settled into the cavity to form a crater.
At the south end of Yucca Flat is Yucca Lake, also called Yucca Dry Lake. The dry, alkaline lake bed holds a restricted runway (Yucca Airstrip) which was built by the Army Corps of Engineers before nuclear testing began in the area. To the west of the dry lake bed is News Nob, a rocky outcropping from which journalists and VIPs were able to watch atmospheric nuclear tests at Yucca Flat.[5]
Nearby
West of the dry lake bed, cresting the top of Yucca Pass, is Control Point, or CP-1, the 31,600 sq ft (2,940 m2) complex of buildings which contains testing and monitoring equipment for nuclear tests, and a cafeteria that seats 32. CP-1 overlooks both Yucca and Frenchman Flats. Today, Control Point is the center for support of all activity at the NTS.[5]
A subsidence crater in nearby
Nuclear testing
Yucca Flat saw 739 nuclear tests, including 827 separate detonations. The higher number of detonations is from single tests that included multiple nuclear explosions occurring within a 0.1 second time window and inside a 1.2 mi (2 km) diameter circle. Sixty-two such tests took place at NTS.[3]
No test at Yucca Flat ever exceeded 500 kilotons of expected yield. Tests of larger explosions were carried out at Rainier Mesa and Pahute Mesa, as their geology allowed deeper test shafts.
First tests
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2c/Yucca_Flat_drill_rig_NF1341.jpg/170px-Yucca_Flat_drill_rig_NF1341.jpg)
The first test explosion at Yucca Flat came after five prior atmospheric tests at nearby Area 5 as part of
The first underground test at NTS was the "Uncle" shot of
Operation Plumbbob
In
The "John" shot of Plumbbob, on July 19, 1957, was the first test firing of the nuclear-tipped
A dramatically different test shot was the "Sedan" test of Operation Storax on July 6, 1962, a 104 kiloton shot for Project Plowshare which sought to discover whether nuclear weapons could be used for peaceful means in creating lakes, bays or canals. The explosion displaced twelve million tons of earth, creating a crater 1,280 ft (390 m) wide and 320 ft (98 m) deep in Area 10. For an underground shot, a relatively large amount of energy was vented to the atmosphere, estimated to be 2.5 kilotons (7.4 bars of pressure).[9] Two radioactive dust clouds rose up from the explosion and traveled across the United States, one at 10,000 ft (3,000 m) and the other at 16,000 ft (4,900 m). Both dropped radioactive particles across the USA before crossing into the sky above the Atlantic Ocean. Among many other radioisotopes, the clouds carried 880 kCi (33 PBq) of 131I.
Baneberry
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b2/Operation_Emery_-_Baneberry.jpg/170px-Operation_Emery_-_Baneberry.jpg)
Some 86 workers at the site were exposed to radioactivity, but according to the Department of Energy none received a dose exceeding site guidelines and, similarly, radiation drifting offsite was not considered to pose a hazard by the DOE.
Two US Federal court cases resulted from the Baneberry event. Two NTS workers who were exposed to high levels of radiation from Baneberry died in 1974, both from acute myeloid leukemia. The district court found that although the Government had acted negligently, the radiation from the Baneberry test did not cause the leukemia cases. The district decision was upheld on appeal in 1996.[16][17]
Huron King
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/88/Huron_King_test_chamber.jpg/220px-Huron_King_test_chamber.jpg)
As part of
Last test
The final test at Yucca Flat (also the last test at the entire Nevada Test Site) was Operation Julin's "Divider" on September 23, 1992, just prior to the moratorium temporarily ending all nuclear testing. Divider was a safety experiment test shot that was detonated at the bottom of a shaft sunk into Area 3.
Abandoned tests
Three tests planned for 1993 have been abandoned in place, two in Yucca Flat. The
Radioactivity
UGTA
The United States Department of Energy produced a report in April, 1997, on a subproject of the Nevada Environmental Restoration Project. The larger project involves environmental restoration and mitigation activities in the NTS,
USGS
In 2003, the United States Geological Survey (USGS) collected and processed magnetotellurics (MT) and audio-magnetotelluric (AMT) data at the Nevada Test Site from 51 data stations placed in and near Yucca Flat to get a more accurate idea of the pre-Tertiary geology found in the Yucca Flat Corrective Action Unit (CAU). The intent was to discover the character, thickness, and lateral extent of pre-Tertiary rock formations that affect the flow of underground water. In particular, a major goal was to define the upper clastic confining unit (UCCU) in the Yucca Flat area.[23][24]
First responder training
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/5b/NTS_First_responder_training.jpg/220px-NTS_First_responder_training.jpg)
The radioactivity present on the ground in Area 1 provides a radiologically-contaminated environment for the training of first responders.[25] Trainees are exposed to methods of radiation detection and its health hazards. Further training takes place in other areas of NTS.[26]
See also
- How to Photograph an Atomic Bomb
- Jackass Flats, Nevada
- Mercury, Nevada
- Nevada Test Site
- Nye County, Nevada
- Pahute Mesa
- The Beast of Yucca Flats
Notes
- ^ United States Geological Survey. Nevada Test Site. Geologic Surface Effects of Underground Nuclear Testing. Accessed on April 18, 2009.
- ^ a b Gerald H. Clarfield and William M. Wiecek (1984). Nuclear America: Military and Civilian Nuclear Power in the United States 1940–1980, Harper & Row, New York, p. 202.
- ^ a b "US Department of Energy. Nevada Operations Office. United States Nuclear Tests: July 1945 through September 1992 (December 2000)" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-08-05. Retrieved 2008-07-08.
- ^ a b The Worst Nuclear Disasters
- ^ a b c "Online Nevada. Alan Moore. Yucca Flat (Last Updated: 2007-04-19 09:22:27)". Archived from the original on 2012-02-14. Retrieved 2008-07-08.
- ^ "Operation Plumbbob". 2003-07-12. Retrieved 2010-04-24.
- ^ a b c "National Cancer Institute. National Institute of Health. History of the Nevada Test Site and Nuclear Testing Background" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-12-21. Retrieved 2008-07-08.
- ^ "California Literary Review. Peter Kuran. Images from How To Photograph an Atomic Bomb. (October 22, 2007)". Archived from the original on May 24, 2012. Retrieved July 8, 2008.
- ^ Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. J. B. Knox. A Heuristic Examination of Scaling. (July 14, 1969)
- ^ National Register of Historic Places. Nye County, Nevada.
- ^ "Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. News Archive. Tarabay H. Antoun. Three Dimensional Simulation of the Baneberry Nuclear Event" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-05-27. Retrieved 2008-07-08.
- ^ "University of Las Vegas. Nevada Test Site Oral History Project. Clifford Olsen (interviewed September 20, 2004)". Archived from the original on August 1, 2008. Retrieved February 12, 2022.
- ^ "Shundahai Network. Area 8". Archived from the original on 2008-07-23. Retrieved 2008-07-08.
- ^ Two-Sixty Press. Richard L. Miller. Fallout Maps. Gallery 33
- ^ "Nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site". Brookings.
- ^ United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. James Randall Roberts v. United States of America. (1996)
- ^ University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Libraries Special Collections. MS 19. Baneberry Collection: Court proceedings of William Nunamaker vs. the United States and Harley Roberts vs. the United States, as they came to trial January 1979, in Federal District Court, Las Vegas. Donated by Judge Robert Foley.
- ^ Nuclear weapon archive. Underground Testing at the Nevada Test Site
- ^ "US Department of Energy. Nevada Operations Office. Library. Factsheets. Icecap (May 2007)" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-09-27. Retrieved 2008-07-08.
- ^ DOE Nevada Operations Office, Las Vegas, Nevada. Underground test area quality assurance project plan, Nevada test site, Nevada. Revision 1 (April 1997)
- doi:10.2172/471470
- ISBN 0-679-75153-X.
- ^ USGS. Science topics. Magnetotelluric Data, North Central Yucca Flat, Nevada Test Site, Nevada. Jackie M. Williams, Brian D. Rodriguez, and Theodore H. Asch. (November 2005)
- ^ USGS Deep Resistivity Structure of Yucca Flat, Nevada Test Site, Nevada. Theodore H. Asch, Brian D. Rodriguez, Jay A. Sampson, Erin L. Wallin, and Jackie M. Williams. (September 2006)
- ^ "US Department of Energy. Nevada Operations Office. Library. Photo Library. Photo Details T1area_CTOS". Archived from the original on 2008-08-04. Retrieved 2008-07-08.
- ^ "First Responder Training". U.S. Department of Energy. Archived from the original on 2008-05-02. Retrieved 2010-07-19.
External links
- Yucca Flat Archived 2012-02-14 at the Wayback Machine at the Online Nevada Encyclopedia. Includes photo gallery.