Project Faultless Ground Zero - CNTA

 explosion site, weapons, nuclear testing area

Central Nevada Test Area, 1968.

In the 1960s, the U.S. and Soviet Union were engaged in an all-out nuclear arms race to see who could build and then detonate the biggest weapons.

Every time a big hydrogen bomb was detonated on the established Nevada Test Site, the tremors would shake the penthouse suite atop the Desert Inn in Las Vegas only about 75 miles away and the frayed nerves of its sole resident, multi-billionaire Howard Hughes.
At the peak of testing, a bomb was going off about every three days.

Before there was a national environmental movement, Howard Hughes became the most unlikely (not to mention the most powerful) opponent of nuclear weapons testing during the Cold War.
Hughes wrote a rambling letter to President Johnson, asking him to stop nuclear testing.
The Atomic Energy Commission was under so much heat from Hughes, as well as other hotel owners, that the agency ordered a test to see whether a big detonation farther from the Strip would reduce the shaking there.

A series of underground thermonuclear tests was planned for this new location, more powerful than any of the tests before. Project Faultless was the first calibration test, intended to determine the geological impact. It had a yield of approximately 1.0 megatons, "only" about 67 times the energy of the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. Other, much more powerful tests were to follow.

Project Faultless was detonated 3,200 feet underground on 19 January 1968, at 10:15 a.m.
The results were devastating.

The force of the explosion caused the ground in a radius of several miles to collapse, and created several deep fault lines that despite some "restoration" efforts by the AEC are still visible in this Wikimapia image. A steel pipe with a diameter of 7.4 feet had been drilled into the ground to place the bomb. Its top end was level with the surface before the test. After the explosion the top 9 feet of the pipe were exposed, due to the ground collapsing. (see picture)

The blast also created a huge cylindrical underground cavity, a so-called nuclear rubble chimney. It is approximately 820 feet in diameter, and 2,460 feet in height. At its bottom lies over 500,000 metric tons of highly radioactive rubble, with radiation levels similar to the core of a nuclear reactor.

The completely unpredicted disastrous geological damage led to the cancellation of the entire project. The steel pipe was sealed with concrete, and all other sites that were being prepared for more, even more powerful tests were abandoned. The excavations can still be seen nearby on Wikimapia. An engraved metal plaque reminding of the test and warning against radio activity was affixed to the top of the steel pipe, which now serves as a memorial of sorts, marking Ground Zero of the Project Faultless test.

The center of the blast, deep inside the ground, is contaminated with radiation for millions of years, but it appears that the surface is relatively "clean", and it is safe to visit the site. However, the plaque prohibits digging in the area, or even picking up material from the ground.