Maralinga Range, nuclear weapons test "Taranaki" relict

On this British nuclear weapons test site, the biggest shot "Taranaki" (27kt) was exploded 1957-10-09 from a balloon 300m above the ground. Further tests were conducted here, mainly the shots "Breakaway", "Biak", "Tadje", "Kite" and "Marcoo". Between 1960 and 1963 this place was further used for the nuclear weapons safety test series "Vixen B", where about 40kg plutonium-239 and uran-235 where widely spread into the country due to burning nuclear weapons and conventional explosion test on nuclear weapons. The highly contaminated area was cleaned extensively in 1993, where also the complete vegetation was removed, as you can still see here. Today the area is still contaminated and shows elevated radiation levels due to fission and decay products, mainly americium-241. The whole area should not be visited.