Nuclear Test Sites | atomicarchive.com Nuclear Test Sites From 1945 until 1998, there have been over 2,000 nuclear tests conducted worldwide. Click on a red square to learn more about that nuclear test site. Amchitka Island, Alaska, USA Site of three underground nuclear tests in the 1960's and early 1970s, the Amchitka facility was closed in 1971. Pacific Ocean Site of various French nuclear tests. Nevada Test Site, Nevada, USA Established by President Truman in 1950 and now operated by the Department of Energy, the NTS has been the site of over 900 atmospheric and underground nuclear tests. Fallon, Nevada Site of an American test. Trinity Site, New Mexico, USA Site of first nuclear weapon test on July 16, 1945. Carlsbad, New Mexico Site of an American test. Green Valley, Colorado Site of an American nuclear test. Rifle, Colorado Site of a American nuclear test. Hattiesburg, Mississippi Site of several American tests.

Open Sea, South Atlantic Ocean Site of three American nuclear rocket tests in 1958. Reggan, Sahara Desert, Algeria The first French nuclear device was detonated at Reggan on February 13, 1960. At the time, Algeria was a protectorate of France. Ekker, Algeria Site of French testing. Novaya Zemlya Island, C.I.S. Site of extensive Soviet atmospheric and underground testing, Novaya Zemlya was the site of the largest thermonuclear device ever tested, a 58 megaton bomb detonated on October 23, 1961. Semipalatinsk, C.I.S. Site of hundreds of Soviet atmospheric and underground nuclear tests. Also the site of the first Soviet nuclear test on August 29, 1949. Prince Edward Island, Indian Ocean Site of the South African/Israeli nuclear test. Lop Nur, Western China Primary nuclear test site. Site of the first Chinese atomic explosion on October 16, 1964 and first Chinese thermonuclear detonation on December 27, 1968.

Chagai Hills, Baluchistan, Pakistan Site of the first Pakistani nuclear detonations on May 28, 1998. Pokharan, Rajastan Desert, India Site of the first Indian nuclear detonation on May 18, 1974. This bomb was exploded 100 meters beneath the surface. The site of the 5 nuclear tests in 1998. Monte Bello Islands, Australia Site of the first British nuclear weapons tests in 1952. Used for atmospheric tests until 1956. Nagasaki, Japan Site of the second nuclear weapon used in wartime. The Nagasaki bomb, Fat Man, was dropped three days after the bomb on Hiroshima, on August 9, 1945. It is yield was about 22 kilotons. Hiroshima, Japan Site of the first nuclear weapon used in wartime. The Hiroshima bomb, Little Boy, was dropped on August 6, 1945. It is yield was about 12 kilotons. Punggye-ri Nuclear Test Site, North Korea Site of North Korea's three nuclear tests.

Emu Field, Australia Site of two British nuclear weapons tests. Maralinga and Woomera Test Sites, Australia Used in the 1950's by the British for atmospheric testing. Eniwetok Atoll, Marshall Islands Administered by the U.S., this island was used for nuclear testing in the late 1940's and 50's. Eniwetok was the site of the world's first thermonuclear detonation MIKE in 1952. Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands Administered by the U.S., this island was used for nuclear testing in the late 1940's and 50's. Bikini Atoll was the site of BRAVO test. Johnston Island Administered by the United States. Site of a number of tests during the late 1950's and early 1960's. Pacific Ocean Site of American testing. CEP , Mururoa and Fangatau Atolls, French Polynesia (Le Centre d' experimentation du Pacifique) Operated by the French, the CEP is used for nuclear testing.

Site of first French thermonuclear device on August 24, 1968. Christmas Island, Kiribati Used for British and American nuclear testing in the 1950's and early 1960's. Site of the first British thermonuclear detonation on May 15, 1957. Related Products Largest Underground Nuclear Test: Spartan ABM Warhead (Operation Grommet-Cannikin) 1971 US DOE - YouTube Largest Underground Nuclear Test: Spartan ABM Warhead (Operation Grommet-Cannikin) 1971 US DOE Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. The interactive transcript could not be loaded. Loading... Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later. Published on Oct 16, 2014 more at The Cannikin nuclear test of Operation Grommet on November 6, 1971 was the underground detonation of a 5 megaton W71 nuclear warhead designed for the Spartan ABM missile.

Actual yield was reported to be between 4.4 and 5.2 MT, the largest nuclear device ever exploded underground. After the detonation, the ground could be felt moving 23 miles away. Public domain film from the US Department of Energy, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied. The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original). The W-71 nuclear warhead was a US thermonuclear warhead developed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and deployed on the LIM-49A Spartan missile, a component of the Safeguard Program, an anti-ballistic missile(ABM) defense system briefly deployed by the US in the 1970s. The warhead was designed to intercept a cloud of incoming enemy warheads after their carrying missile's boost phase, at altitudes comparable to low earth orbit where there is practically no air, an environment which permits the passage of essentially all of the X-rays generated by the nuclear explosion.

As part of the Safeguard ABM program the W71 was to serve as the first line of defense and as a complement to the other Safeguard missile-warhead pairing, the Sprint missiles enhanced neutron radiation warhead, the W66. The W71 warhead had a yield of around 5 megatons of TNT (21 PJ) optimized for the directional production of thermal soft X-rays and minimal debris in an exoatmospheric detonation. The target would be damaged or destroyed by near-instantaneous x-ray vaporization of its surface resulting in an inward-propagating shock wave. The warhead package was roughly a cylinder, 42 inches (1.1 m) in diameter and 101 inches (2.6 m) long. The complete warhead weighed around 2,850 pounds (1,290 kg).[3] The Spartan warhead(W71) produced great amounts of x rays, and needed to minimize fission output and debris to reduce the radar blackout effect that fission products and debris produce on Anti-Ballistic Missile radar systems...

a W71 prototype was successfully tested in Project CANNIKIN of Operation Grommet in the world's largest underground nuclear test, on Amchitka Island in the Aleutian Islands off Alaska. The W71, mounted in a Spartan missile body, was lowered 6,150 feet (1,870 m) down a 90 inches (2.3 m) diameter borehole into a man-made cavern 52 feet (16 m) in diameter. A 264 feet (80 m) long instrumentation system monitored the detonation. The full yield test was conducted at 11:00am local time November 6, 1971 and resulted in a vertical ground motion of more than 15 feet (4.6 m) at a distance of 2,000 feet (610 m) from the borehole, equivalent to an earthquake of magnitude 7.0 on the Richter scale. A mile (1.6 km) wide and 40 feet (12 m) deep crater formed two days later....

Amchitka is a volcanic, tectonically unstable island in the Rat Islands group of the Aleutian Islands in southwest Alaska. It is part of the Alaska Maritime National Wildlife Refuge. The island is about 68 kilometers (42 mi) long, and from 3 to 6 km (1.9 to 3.7 mi) wide. The area has a maritime climate, with many storms, and mostly overcast skies. Amchitka was populated for more than 2,500 years by the Aleut people, but has had no permanent population since 1832. The island has been part of the United States since the Alaska Purchase of 1867. During World War II, it was used as an airfield by US forces in the Aleutian Islands Campaign. Amchitka was selected by the United States Atomic Energy Commission to be the site for underground detonations of nuclear weapons.

Three such tests were carried out: Long Shot, an 80-kiloton (330 TJ) blast in 1965; Milrow, a 1-megaton (4.2 PJ) blast in 1969; and Cannikin in 1971 – at 5 Mt (21 PJ), the largest underground test ever conducted by the United States... Cannikin was intended to test the design of the Spartan anti-ballistic missile (ABM) interceptor – a high-yield warhead that "produced copious amounts of x-rays and minimized fission output and debris to prevent blackout of ABM radar systems." The test would "measure the yield of the device, measure the x-ray flux and spectrum, and assure deployment of a reliable design."... The ground lifted 20 feet (6 m), caused by an explosive force almost 400 times the power of the Hiroshima bomb. Subsidence and faulting at the site created a new lake, over a mile wide.

The explosion caused a seismic shock of 7.0 on the Richter scale, causing rockfalls and turf slides of a total of 35,000 square feet (3,300 m2)... Category Multimegaton Tests MULTIMEGATON TESTS High-yield thermonuclear tests: overview The U.S. and U.S.S.R. have conducted a total of 23 nuclear tests of at least 4 megatons each. The U.S. from 1952 to 1962 detonated 11 such devices above ground plus one underground in 1971. The total yield of these was 105 mt for an average of 9 mt each. The largest of these was a 15 mt test in 1954. In turn, the U.S.S.R. detonated 12 such multi-megaton devices above ground in 1961 and 1962, plus one underground in 1973. Their total yield was 200 mt, for an average of 15 mt each. The largest Soviet test was a 58 mt test in 1961.

The total fission yield of all 22 above ground tests was about 124 mt (54 mt from U.S. tests and 70 mt from Soviet tests). In addition, one 4 mt atmospheric test was conducted by the People's Republic of China in 1976. low? 1.1 km crater Explanation: GMT=Greenwich Mean Time, lat/long=latitude and longitude, HOB=height of burst above ground/water surface (negative height indicates depth below surface), % fission=percentage of yield from fission, notes includes crater diameter if applicable, "barge" indicates detonation on off-shore barge, "experimental" indicates device not closely related to a warhead design. See text for sources. The largest U.S. nuclear tests The U.S. conducted 11 nuclear tests with yields exceeding 4 megatons. These had a total yield of 105 megatons (54 mt fission). All were conducted from 1952 to 1962 in the Pacific Ocean.[1] The last was an underground test, Shot Cannikin of Operation Grommet, described above with the W71 warhead.

The largest U.S. nuclear test was Shot Bravo in Operation Castle. This test was one in a series of tests in the Marshall Islands with the goal of testing prototypes of the first weaponized thermonuclear weapons ("emergency capability" weapons). Bravo was the first shot in the series and was a test of the "Shrimp" TX-21 device, with a predicted yield of 6 megatons. The device had been placed at the end of a causeway extending onto the reef 970 meters from the southwest tip of Namu island in Bikini Atoll. It was detonated at 6:45 AM on 1 March local time (18:45 28 February Universal Time). Designers had significantly underestimated the efficiency of reactions involving lithium-7 in the lithium deuteride solid fuel (one of the design innovations being tested); the actual yield was 15 megatons, 67% from fission.[2] The higher-than-predicted yield combined with a wind shift shortly after detonation to cause casualties from fallout. On two U.S. ships, 37 U.S.

naval personnel--21 on the USS Philip and 16 on the USS Bairoko--received beta burns from fallout particles, producing lesions which all healed without complications.[3] A Japanese fishing boat, the Fukuryu Maru (Lucky Dragon) was just outside the 130-km radius restricted zone and received heavy fallout beginning about 1.5 hours after detonation. The 23 crewmembers did not recognize the falling material as hazardous and made little effort to minimize their exposure to it; some crew members tasted the fallout. Some crew members began developing radiation sickness within three days, and the entire crew developed acute radiation sickness before the boat returned to Japan on 14 March. On return to Japan, the boat's owner recognized the crew was ill and called a hospital, which referred the men for treatment the following day. One member of the Fukuryu Maru crew died of a liver disorder, a complication from radiation sickness, on 23 September 1954.[4, 5] Significant fallout also fell on inhabited islands west of Bikini under U.S.

jurisdiction, exposing native islanders on Rongerik, Rongelap, Ailinginae, and Utirik atolls, all of which were evacuated on 3 March. The highest doses were to the 64 inhabitants of Rongelap Atoll (about 170 km from ground zero), some of whom received 175 rads before their evacuation 44 hours after the detonation. Some reports indicate that Rongelap inhabitants (unaware of the nature of the fallout) did little to minimize exposure, including inadvertent ingestion of fallout, contributing to acute radiation injury. Some evacuated inhabitants of downwind atolls later developed thyroid hypofunction; thyroid exposure for some who were children at time of exposure is estimated at 700-1,400 rad and at 325 rad for some adults. Those who were children at Rongelap show high frequencies of thyroid anomalies, and one 19-year old male died in 1972 of leukemia (age 1 year at time of exposure).[4, 5, 6, 7, 8] The W71 was the high-yield warhead developed for the Spartan ABM.

The W71's yield was too large for underground testing at the Nevada Test Site, so Amchitka Island in the Alaskan Aleutians was selected as a site. To evaluate concerns over this site, a test of 1.2 megatons was conducted at Amchitka on 2 October 1969 (Milrow). Political opposition to the W-71 test (and the Safeguard ABM system in general) included an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court attempting to block the test on the scheduled day; the Court rejected the appeal 4-3, allowing the test to procede.[9] On 6 November 1971 the Spartan's warhead, the W71, was tested at full yield in shot Cannikin of Operation Grommet. At the bottom of a 1.76 km-deep shaft,[9] the warhead's yield was reported as "approximately" 5 mt[10] or "less than 5 megatons"[9], estimated here as about 4.8 megatons. Note: all the tests listed below were conducted at the Novaya Zemlya test site.

date (GMT) The largest Soviet nuclear tests In October 1961 there were four Soviet tests of at least 4 mt (although the yield of one is uncertain). All were conducted at the Novaya Zemlya test site.

They are listed below with the detonation altitude and yield reported by Russia's MINATOM, and the yield reported by Western sources: on 6 October, 2700 m altitude, 4 mt (MINATOM) or several mt (Western); on 23 October, 3500 m altitude[11], 12.5 mt (MINATOM) or 25 mt (Western); on 30 October, 3500 m altitude, 50 mt (MINATOM) or 58 mt (Western); and on 31 October, 2200 m altitude, 5 mt (MINATOM) or several mt (Western).[12, 13] (A test on 4 October reported by MINATOM as 1.5 to 10 mt has been estimated as about 3 mt.) The 30 October test was that of the RDS-220 and was the highest yield nuclear detonation ever conducted. The largest nuclear weapon ever developed by any nuclear power was the Soviet RDS-220,[14] also nicknamed "Big Ivan", "Vanya" or "Tsar Bomba" (King of Bombs).

It was a three-stage weapon weighing 24.8 metric tons and was 8 meters long. Its 2-meter diameter required a specially modified version of the Tu-95 Bear bomber for delivery. The single such Tu-95V carried the RDS-220 partially protruding from the bomb bay.[15, 16] The U.S.S.R. tested this design in an airdrop over Novaya Zemlya on 30 October 1961 at a yield of about 58 megatons.[17, 18, 22] However, this was a reduced yield "clean" version: the uranium sleeve on the tertiary stage was replaced with lead, and the fission yield was only 3% of the total yield.[15] The full yield version had a yield variously reported as 100 mt [16] or 150 mt [14].

About 80% of the fallout from the "Tsar Bomba" test was deposited as global fallout.[19] Some sources report the burst altitude as 3500 m[12], while Russian sources give the burst altitude as 4000 m[20]. It was dropped from the Tu-95V bomber from an altitude of 10,500 m by parachute, allowing the bomber to reach a distance of 45 km before detonation. Reportedly buildings were damaged by the blast "hundreds of kilometers" from ground zero.[21] The yield of the 30 October 1961 test remains the subject of some debate. Best estimate here is that the actual yield was 57-58 mt, based on the following: The U.S.

estimate of 57-58 mt was based on bhangmeter (high-speed photometer) observations and other data from a USAF KC-135 flown near the blast--apparently to within 45 km--as analyzed by the Foreign Weapons Evaluation Panel (or Bethe Panel) to determine the yield.[15, 23, 24] A yield of 58 mt has been affirmed in scientific publications by Russian experts on the Soviet testing program.[29] Nikita Khrushchev in his memoirs claims that the device yield was estimated before the test as 50 mt, and that the actual yield proved greater at 57 mt.[26] Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, official Russian sources (e.g. the Russian atomic energy ministry) have released information on Soviet nuclear tests, reporting a yield of 50 mt.[20, 25] In many cases, discrepancies between the new Russian data and older Western estimates represent the large uncertainties involved in Western intelligence efforts to estimate yields from remote observation. In this case the U.S. data was acquired from close at hand (sufficiently close that the U.S.

KC-135 suffered scorching on the fuselage from the flash[23]). Discrepancies with Russian data may represent continued Russian secrecy (e.g. exact yields for several high yield Soviet tests are still unannounced by Russia [20]), combined with the desire to minimize the issue of fallout associated with the test. The current Russian figures for the Tsar Bomba test, 50 mt yield at 4000 m altitude, place it safely 9% above the Russian agency's threshold defining "air explosions," where "the expanding fireball does not touch the ground surface" [27], whereas the Western data of 57-58 mt yield at 3500 m altitude place it 9% below this threshold. Thus the issue regarding the test yield is plausibly explained by the test exceeding its predicted yield by 15% (still close to design yield, given U.S. test experience) at an actual yield of 57-58 mt, with the current Russian government finding various reasons to prefer the 50 mt yield figure. The 1962 test series included up to eight tests over 4 mt (the yield of several are uncertain).

These high yield tests were all conducted at Novaya Zemlya.

MINATOM-reported burst height and yield and Western yield estimates are: on 5 August, 3600 m altitude, 21.1 mt (MINATOM) or 30 mt (Western); on 25 August, 2980 m altitude, 1.5 to 10 mt (MINATOM) or several mt (Western); on 27 August, 3000 m altitude, 4.2 mt (MINATOM) or 14 mt (Western); on 19 September, 3280 m altitude, 1.5 to 10 mt (MINATOM) or 20 mt (Western); on 25 September, 4090 m altitude, 19.1 mt (MINATOM) or 25 mt (Western); on 27 September, 3900 m altitude, over 10 mt (MINATOM) or less than 30 mt (Western); on 22 October, 3230 m altitude, 8.2 mt (MINATOM) or several mt (Western); and on 24 December, 3750 m altitude, 24.

2 mt (MINATOM) or about 20 mt (Western).[12, 13] The 19 September and (probably) the 27 September tests were competing designs for a high-yield warhead, probably for ICBM delivery.

Andrei Sakharov describes his unsuccessful efforts to stop the test of the competing design on the grounds that it would unnessecarily increase global fallout.[28] The last multimegaton test, that on 24 December, was a reduced yield version of the Chelyabinsk high-yield weapon design (yield of the full-yield version was 50 mt).[12, 25] Two high yield tests were conducted underground at the southern island of Novaya Zemlya in 1973. At least one probably exceeded 4 mt in yield. The yield of these and other Soviet underground tests were the subject of debate in the West for years, with some sources suggesting that published yield estimates were too high. Based on recent information from Russian sources, it appears if anything that the Western estimates had been too low. MINATOM has reported a total yield of 7.8 mt for the two 1973 tests at Novaya Zemlya. The first test, on 12 September, involved a salvo detonation of one device reported as 1.5 to 10 mt in yield plus two with yields between 0.15 and 1.5 mt.

The total yield for this test was about 4 mt. The test on 27 October is reported by MINATOM as between 1.5 and 10 mt in yield. Western estimates have ranged from 2.8 to 4.9 mt; recent reports place the yield at 3.5 mt. If this is correct, the 12 September test yield was about 4.2 mt, of which about 3-3.5 mt was the larger device.[12, 13, 25, 30, 31, 32] Both tests were probably reduced yield versions of warheads for ICBMs nearing deployment. The largest PRC nuclear test On 17 November 1976 the P.R.C. conducted its largest nuclear test. A thermonuclear device was dropped from an H-6 bomber over Lop Nur test site and detonated with a yield of 4 mt.

This was probably a test version of the warhead for the DF-5 ICBM, possibly at reduced yield.[33] Nuclear Test Sites | atomicarchive.com Nuclear Test Sites From 1945 until 2008, there have been over 2,000 nuclear tests conducted worldwide. United States Test Sites Nevada Test Site, Nevada Established by President Truman in 1951 and now operated by the Department of Energy, the Nevada Test Site (NTS) has been the site of over 900 atmospheric and underground nuclear tests. The Nevada Test Site was the primary testing location of American nuclear devices; 126 tests were conducted elsewhere (many at the Pacific Proving Grounds in the Marshall Islands). On July 17, 1962 the last atmospheric test detonation occurred at the Nevada Test Site. Underground testing continued until September 23, 1992. (37.016535°N, 116.029186°W) Trinity Site, New Mexico Trinity Site is where the first atomic bomb was tested at 5:29:45 a.m.

Mountain War Time on July 16, 1945. The site was part of the Alamogordo Bombing Range, now the White Sands Missile Range. (33.674997°N, 106.47666°W) Eniwetok Atoll, Marshall Islands Some 43 nuclear tests were detonated at Enewetak from 1948 to 1958. The first hydrogen bomb test, code-named Mike, was tested on November 1, 1952. The explosion vaporized the island of Elugelab. (11.552561, 162.347303°E) Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands Administered by the United States, this island was first used for nuclear testing during Operation Crossroads in 1946. On March 1, 1954, Bikini Atoll was also the site of the largest U.S. nuclear test ever exploded. The Bravo test had a yield of 15 megatons, 3 times the planned yield.

(11.5833333°N, 165.3833333°E) Johnston Island, United States Minor Outlying Islands Site of 12 high-altitude nuclear tests during the late 1950's and early 1960's. It is administered by the United States. (16.730002°N, 169.529128°W) Christmas Island, Kiribati Used for British and American nuclear testing in the 1950's and early 1960's. Site of the first British thermonuclear detonation on November 8, 1957. The USA conducted 22 successful nuclear detonations as part of Operation Dominic here in 1962. (1.844011°N, 157.70462°W) Amchitka Island, Alaska Amchitka Island was the site for three underground nuclear tests. The first test, Long Shot (1965), was designed to determine whether the blast's shock waves could be distinguished from earthquakes.

Milrow, the second (1969), and Cannikin (1971) were part of the U.S. anti-ballistic missile development program. Cannikin had a yield "under 5 megatons", the largest underground test ever conducted by the United States. Amchitka is no longer used for nuclear testing. (51.378853°N, 179.258423°E) Fallon, Nevada The Shoal event was part of the VELA UNIFORM program. It was intended to produce a better understanding of the seismic detection of underground nuclear explosions. (39.200001°N, 118.381001) Central Nevada Test Area, Nevada Project Faultless detonation, a nuclear weapons test conducted on January 19, 1968. The nearly 1-megaton yield was detonated at a depth of 3,200 feet below the surface. This area is also known as the Central Nevada Test Area.

(38.634220°N, 116.216179°W) Carlsbad, New Mexico Project GNOME was the first nuclear explosion to be used for peaceful purposes. It's goal was to explore the possibility of converting heat produced by a nuclear explosion into steam for the production of electric power. (32.26372°N, 103.866152°W) Green Valley, Colorado The aim of Project Rulison was to determine if natural gas could be easily liberated from underground regions. The test had a yield of 43-kilotons. After the test, the natural gas that was extracted was determined to be too radioactive to be sold commercially. (39.487085°N, 107.95166°W) Rifle, Colorado The Rio Blanco test site had three simultaneously detonated 30 kiloton bombs, each at the bottom of a shaft more than a mile deep. The blast was marginally successful in causing the gas to collect in the cavity and fissures produced by the bombs, however the gas was too radioactive to be sold commercially.

(37.978845°N, 108.303223°W) Farmington, New Mexico This was the site of the first U.S. underground nuclear experiment for the stimulation of low productivity gas resources. On December 10, 1967 a 29 kiloton nuclear explosive was detonated at a depth of 4222 feet. The GASBUGGY shot was part of the overall Operation PLOWSHARE (Atoms for Peace) program. (36.677876°N, 107.20794°W) Hattiesburg, Mississippi Two nuclear detonations performed in a subterranean salt dome formation, as part of a 1960's Atomic Energy Commission Test. The first detonation, to form the cavity, code-named Salmon, took place in 1964 using a 5.3 kiloton bomb, placed at the bottom of a sealed 2,710-foot shaft.

The second nuclear blast, a relatively small 0.38 kilotons yield shot code-named Sterling, was exploded within Salmon's 110-foot diameter cavity more than two years later. (31.334871°N, 89.450684°W) Open Sea, South Atlantic Ocean Three high-altitude nuclear weapons tests, name Operation Argus, were conducted between August and September of 1958. The tests were designed to see if high-altitude nuclear detonations would create a radiation belt in the extreme upper regions of the Earth's atmosphere. (48.5°S, 8.2°W) Open Sea, Eastern Pacific Ocean Operation Wigwam consisted of a single nuclear detonation on May 14, 1955. It was a deep water test to investigate the vulnerability of submarines to deep nuclear weapons, and the feasibility of using depth bombs in combat. (28.806174°N, 126.27685°W) Russian Test Sites Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan The former Soviet Union's largest nuclear test site.

The Semipalatinsk Test Site was founded in 1948 with the first nuclear explosion tested in August 29, 1949 and the last in 1989. Over 460 nuclear weapons tests were conducted at this test site. The site was officially closed on August 29, 1991. The region was heavily contaminated by the testing. (50.401515°N, 78.398438°E) Novaya Zemlya Island, C.I.S. Site of extensive Soviet atmospheric and underground testing, Novaya Zemlya was the site of the largest thermonuclear device ever tested, a 58 megaton bomb detonated on October 23, 1961. Over its entire history as a nuclear test site, Novaya Zemlya hosted 224 nuclear detonations. (73.061045°N, 55.151367°E) Note: The Soviet Union conducted many more nuclear tests throughout its terrority, but Semipalatink and Novaya Zemlya were the primary testing locations.

French Test Sites Mururoa and Fangatau Atolls, French Polynesia CEP (Le Centre d' experimentation du Pacifique). Fangataufa, and its sister atoll Mururoa, were the site of extensive nuclear testing by France between 1966 and 1996. The first French thermonuclear device was detonated here on August 24, 1968. Atmospheric testing ended in 1974, and underground testing ended in 1996. (21.830907°S, 138.922119°W) Reggane, Sahara Desert, Algeria The first French nuclear device was detonated at Reggan on February 13, 1960. At the time, Algeria was a protectorate of France. (27.068909°N, 0.010986°W) In Ekker, Sahara Desert, Algeria The site of French 13 nuclear tests between 1961 and 1966.

(24.069036°N, 5.037231°E) British Test Sites Montebello Islands, Australia The site of Operation Hurricane, the first British nuclear weapons test on October 3, 1952. There were two further tests on Alpha and Trimouille Islands in 1956. (20.399130°S, 115.565768°E) Emu Field, Australia The site of the Operation Totem, a pair of atmospheric nuclear tests conducted by the British government in October 1953. (29.363027°S, 131.473389°E) Maralinga and Woomera Test Sites, Australia The site of the Operation Buffalo, a series of four atmospheric nuclear tests conducted in 1956. Operation Antler followed in 1957 with three nuclear tests. (29.856724°S, 131.598358°E) Chinese Test Site Lop Nur, China Primary nuclear test site.

Site of the first Chinese atomic explosion on October 16, 1964 and first Chinese thermonuclear detonation on December 27, 1968. China's last nuclear test occurred here on July 29, 1996. (40.75558°N, 89.500122°E) Indian Test Site Pokharan, Rajastan Desert, India Site of the first Indian nuclear detonation on May 18, 1974. This bomb was exploded 300 feet beneath the surface. The site of the 5 nuclear tests in 1998. (27.016682°N, 71.799691°E) The locale of the October 9, 2006 nuclear detonation. (41.280139°N, 129.085361°E) South African/Israeli Test Sites Prince Edward Island, Indian Ocean Site of the suspected South African/Israeli nuclear test.

A United States Vela satellite detected the characteristic double flash of an atmospheric nuclear explosion on September 22, 1979. (46.36°S, 37.57°E) Combat Sites Hiroshima, Japan Site of the first nuclear weapon used in wartime. The Hiroshima bomb, Little Boy, was dropped on August 6, 1945. It is yield was about 12 kilotons. Little Boy killed 70,000 people and injured another 70,000. By the end of 1945, the Hiroshima death toll rose to 140,000 as radiation sickness deaths mounted. Five years later the total reached 200,000. The bomb caused total devastation for five square miles, with almost all of the buildings in the city either destroyed or damaged. (34.39572°N, 132.453403°E) Nagasaki, Japan Site of the second nuclear weapon used in wartime.

The Nagasaki bomb, Fat Man, was dropped three days after the bomb on Hiroshima, on August 9, 1945. It is yield was about 22 kilotons. Fat Man initially killed 40,000 people and injured 60,000 more. Three square miles of the city were destroyed, less than Hiroshima because of the steep hills surrounding Nagasaki. By January 1946, 70,000 people had died in Nagasaki. The total eventually reached 140,000, with a death rate similar to that of Hiroshima. (32.774917°N, 129.862282°E) Cannikin Nuclear Test Footage | Military.com 9 | Login or Join to Rate Clean Rating: Safe for work. Cannikin Nuclear Test Footage Posted Jan 19, 2012 by Member 26835147 The largest underground nuclear test conducted by the United States, Project Cannikin was one of three underground nuclear tests performed at different places on this 43-mile long island in the Aleutian Chain.

This $200 million 1971 test was performed to test an Anti-Ballistic Missile warhead, for a Spartan ABM missile. It consisted of a 5 megaton-yield thermonuclear bomb, detonated in a 50-foot diameter chamber, at the bottom of a 5,875-foot shaft. The island of Amchitka was a military outpost in WWII, and the air field and base camp from that facility were reused for the nuclear testing program. Category: Nov. 6, 1944 & 1971: A Double Nuke Anniversary | WIRED Nov. 6, 1944 & 1971: A Double Nuke Anniversary subscribe 6 months for $5 - plus a FREE Portable Phone Charger. On Twitter 9 hours A comedy about the apocalypse—penned by @neilhimself —is slated for 2018. So there's that to look forward to at least bit.ly/2jcWNvp Author: Tony Long. Tony Long Date of Publication: 11.06.09. Time of Publication: 12:00 am. 12:00 am Nov.

6, 1944 & 1971: A Double Nuke Anniversary 1944: Weapons-grade plutonium, for the very heart of the Fat Man atomic bomb used to obliterate Nagasaki, Japan, is first produced at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in south-central Washington state. Twenty-seven years later, in 1971, the Atomic Energy Commission detonates the largest U.S. underground hydrogen device, during testing in Alaska’s Aleutian Islands. The development of weapons-grade plutonium was one of the most tightly guarded secrets of the Manhattan Project . Allied planners feared Nazi Germany was on the verge of producing an atomic bomb of its own. That turned out not to be true, but planners had given top priority to the development of an effective nuclear weapon. Two variants were produced in time to be used against Japan: a uranium bomb, christened Little Boy, which was dropped on Hiroshima, and the plutonium bomb, Fat Man, used on Nagasaki. The early work on developing a plutonium-based bomb was not done at Hanford, but at various sites around the country, including the University of Chicago and the University of California at Berkeley.

The Hanford plant , located along the Columbia River, was established in 1943, at the height of World War II. The B Reactor became the world’s first full-scale plutonium-production reactor in the world. The plutonium produced there was used in the first-ever atomic bomb test , at Trinity, in July 1945. Security at Hanford was so tight that less than 1 percent of the workers realized they were engaged in the development of a nuclear weapon. When the Cold War replaced the hot one in the latter half of the 1940s, Hanford continued expanding until it included nine nuclear reactors and five plutonium-processing complexes. The plant produced the vast majority of the plutonium used in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, which eventually reached 60,000 weapons. One of those weapons was expended in an underground test beneath Amchitka Island in the Aleutian chain on Nov. 6, 1971. The hydrogen bomb was the largest ever detonated by the United States: Even buried at a depth of 6,000 feet, it still registered a shock of magnitude 7. The political fallout, however, was even worse.

The test was no secret, and opposition to it had been building for weeks. Environmentalists and peace groups, along with a majority of U.S. senators, were beseeching President Richard Nixon to call off the test, arguing that the potential environmental damage — including earthquakes and tidal waves — outweighed whatever the military hoped to achieve by detonating the device. Opposition was not limited to the United States. The Japanese protested, fearing the test could cause a tsunami that might swamp the Japanese mainland. The Canadians, neighbors on the other side of the Pacific, indulged in a wave of anti-Americanism rarely seen north of the border. U.S. consulates were stoned, and several American companies had to shut down their Canadian operations. The Nixon administration defended the test, codenamed Cannikan, saying it was necessary to ensure a U.S. shield against a potential Chinese nuclear attack. That cut no ice with a number of scientists, however, who argued that technology had already rendered this type of system obsolete. After a legal challenge was thrown out, the test went ahead as scheduled. In the end, no earthquakes or tsunamis ensued. Subsequent investigations have turned up little or no nuclear contamination.

What was gleaned from the test is known, presumably, only to those who had a stake in its being conducted. In practical terms, however, the Amchitka bomb only stiffened the opposition, helping to hasten the end of nuclear testing. And maybe that’s the silver lining in the nuclear cloud. Source: Various Photo: Nuclear reactors line the riverbank at Hanford, Washington. The historic B Reactor, which created the plutonium for the Nagasaki atomic bomb, is in the distance. US sulking out loud with nuclear test: from the archive, 29 October 1971 | From the Guardian | The Guardian Share on Messenger Close Within a few days the tiny island of Amchitka in the Aleutians will be rocked by a five-megaton underground weapons test. The nuclear blast, codenamed Cannikin, and the largest ever undertaken by the US, takes place in the face of official protests from Canada, Japan, and the State of Alaska, and against the wishes of a large proportion of the US scientific community.

After months of delay, approval for the test appears to have been given by President Nixon with unseemly haste and within a few hours of the defeat of the US in the UN over the admission of China. The official reason for going ahead, "because it is in the national interest" of the US, will probably be condemned as wholly cynical by the organisations and individuals who have, for more than a year, fought for its abandonment. The most telling arguments against the test, which is taking place on Russia's back doorstep, are not environmental. Cannikin was designed some years ago as part of the development programme for the "heavy" ABM "Safeguard" system which, for reasons of cost and technical immensity, was abandoned almost two years ago. The modified light ABM system that took its place calls for smaller and different warheads. When President Nixon canvassed the opinion of seven Government agencies his own Office of Science and Technology pointed out that the test was of only marginal technical usefulness. Of the seven agencies canvassed only two, the US Atomic Energy Commission and the Department of Defence, expressed approval.

Significantly Dr Harold Agnew, the new director of the AEC's weapons development and test organisation - the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory - has endorsed the view that the test is technically weak, while the Federation of American Scientists has said, categorically and officially, that Cannikin is "obsolete." Yet, against this kind of open public assessment, and in spite of injunctions sought by the US Committee for Nuclear Responsibility and various other collected environmental and anti-war groups, President Nixon has given the nod. The environmental doubts, if less telling, are real enough. Some 19 US underground tests are known to have vented accidentally and, although the Amchitka site is structurally tougher than that in Nevada, the possibility of accident and of widespread radioactive contamination must exist. This is true of all underground tests on a large scale wherever they are carried out. It is equally true that there is a possibility, however small, that such tests will trigger a major earth movement and cause damage or tidal waves at points remote from the site. True, the US AEC has already tested Amchitka - which sits on a seismic ridge - with a smaller explosion, and has found that aftershocks are small and shortlived.

Yet the cosy reassurance of an earlier test is no justification for going ahead with a test whose purpose has long since been overtaken. It begins to seem as though the reasons for delay were not, as had been supposed, partially environmental, partially technical, and partially political, because of Russian visits to Canada and China. They were wholly political. As the concrete and gravel is tamped down in the huge 6,000ft.-deep excavation, it also looks as though the final reason for going ahead is political. Not, however, on the basis of parity for, although Russia had a big bang a few weeks ago, tests are neither designed nor used that way. But as a gesture of political pique because of economic pressures from Japan and because of defeat in the UN. Cannikin, you could say, is an expression of US national disgrace.

Question: In 1971, on which island was the largest underground test of nuclear weapons ever conducted by the USA?
Answer: Amchitka