1964 report on effects nuclear explosion

22, but was postponed repeatedly because the wind direction was not ideal. Scientists hypothesized that the shockwaves of the second detonation would be muffled by the cavity, effectively concealing it from seismographic detection. The second detonation, Project Sterling, would use a smaller bomb in the cavity left behind by the first blast. The first, code-named Project Salmon, would be an explosion 2,700 feet down in solid salt. The delayed effects (radioactive fallout and other possible. Immediate effects (blast, thermal radiation, prompt ionizing radiation) are produced and cause significant destruction within seconds or minutes of a nuclear detonation. The site of Project Dribble’s first detonation was 28 miles southwest of Hattiesburg in the Tatum Salt Dome, a massive Mesozoic salt deposit 1,000 feet below the ground. Nuclear explosions produce both immediate and delayed destructive effects. Underground detonations were not banned in the treaty because it was still technically unclear how they could be detected to ensure compliance.Īfter signing the treaty, the United States government created Project Dribble, an effort to study how underground nuclear tests could be detected - or hidden. The previous year, as a response to rising public anxiety over the potential fallout of bigger and bigger test explosions, the United States, Great Britain and the Soviet Union had signed the Partial Test Ban Treaty, which prohibited all nuclear testing in the atmosphere, underwater and in outer space. 22, 1964, a five-kiloton nuclear device was detonated in Lamar County, Mississippi.

1964 report on effects nuclear explosion