Evening star., 1961-12-11

prise. In an Acc publication
distributed to accredited OBJ
servers here before the shot 1t
was stated that "the probability
of the experiment venting is
so low as to approach the i'm
possible"
Apologies for Claim
The same publication said
elsewhere:
"Gnome is designed to be
completely contained under
ground. There will be no fall
out or other danger to the
public"
Richard Elliott, information
chief for Aces Albuquerque,
N. Mex, office, shouldered re-
sponsibility for the publication.
He said:
I'm hindsight, my office
turned out what turned out to
be an inaccurate statement. ]
am sorry" 4
Another surprise was the
violence of the blast. People
standing on the surface several
miles away may feel nothing or
at most will feel only a slight
JAR" the Acc briefing pam
phlet said.
But when the countdown
reached zero several hundred
observers at News Knob" were
shaken by a strong tremor
familiar to anyone who has
been through a moderate earth
quake. 1t lasted for about a
second or two juggling cameras
and binoculars.
Ground Shudders
Through powerful glasses, the
ground around point zero was
seen to shudder and shake.
sending into the air a flat
cloud of dust that appeared to
be so feet high and about "a
of a mile long.
Within two seconds, a 2,400-
pound charge of high explosives
detonated prematurely. The
charge was supposed to have
gone off about five minutes
after the Gnome shot for the
purpose of celebrating certain
instruments.
AEV officials still do not
know what caused the prema-
ture high explosive blast.
Faulty wiring or sympathetic
detonation"-an explosion set
off by the shock wave Of an
other blast appeared the most
likely explanation.
Earthquake recording equip
ment registered the shock as
of magnitude 4 Of the Richter
scale. This is consistent with
an atomic bomb blast equiva-
lent to about 5000 tons of TINT.
Studies undertaken so far in
dicate that the explosions
force may have been as great
as 5000 tons.
(Six new seismographs at
George town University IN
Washington failed to pick up
any evidence of the under
ground blast. The Rev. Bernard
Mcconnell, S. j., director OF
the seismograph station, said
the explosion was not big
enough to register on the
devices.
(The only other known un-
derground nuclear explosion of
5 kilotons, set off in Nevada
in October, 1858, registered a
magnitude of 4.3 to A.
(The smaller signal from the
Project Gnome blast probably
was anticipated because salt
transmits less force to the
surrounding earth than does
the volcanic ash in which he
Nevada shot was firedD
No Damage
Despite the spectacular sur
prises offered by Project
Gnome there apparently was no
damage done. Potash mines
nearby which had been cleared
of workers at 7:15 am. were
back in operation by late after
noon. Carlsbad Caverns, a
world-famous natural wonder
20 miles south Of here and IS
miles from the Gnome site was
undamaged.
DR.. Philip Randolph. deputy
director of Project Gnome for
the Lawrence Radiation Lab
oratory, Livermore. Calf, said
he was delighted to be able to
state that 70 per cent of the
objectives of Gnome have been
recovered as useful data" How
ever. it remained to be seen
whether the well-touted power
aspect would prove successful.
One Of Gnome's best-publi-
cized facets was the creation of
a giant heat sink" of molten
salt in which live steam could
be generated. This steam would
be brought to the surface in
such a way that it could be
determined how much electric
power it would have yielded if
run through a standard turbo-
generator. But no one here
was yet able to say whether this
experiment would produce val
liable results.
Detection Gains
The program apparently most
likely to receive valuable in
formation from Gnome was
"Vela- Uniform" a joint mill
tary-AEC project aimed at
learning more about the de-
lection of underground test ex-
plosions. An extensive Vela net
work listened in on the blast.
Whether data from Vela seis-
mographs detected the much
sought seismic signature" re-