Maralinga Range, nuclear weapons test "Taranaki" relict

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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.
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_nuclear_tests_at_Maralinga
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   29°53'40"S   131°35'22"E

Comments

  • More informations: http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Uk/UKTesting.html
  • Absolutely, avoid this area like the plague, exactly how far the radiation has spread over the years I don't know, but it makes one think about the cancer rate increase over the years and if it's related to the open air nuclear testing done all over the world?
  • Wrong State - This should be under World/Australia/South Australia NOT World/Australia/Northern Territory
  • По-русски пишите, уроды. Нихрена не понятно. Вы чё, по-русски говорить не умеете? Даже таджики ито на стройке говорят по-русски.
  • I’ve worked with Plutonium and other Alpha emitting isotopes and I’ve also worked in Health Physics (I’m also formally qualified in the field of radiation health and safety), I was was asked if I was interested in a contract job at Maralinga in the early 1990’s but I lucked out as the company I worked for didn’t get the contract to supply monitoring staff for what I now know was the Brumbi 2 clean up. But that said since then I have read a fair bit on what it was like out there and to be honest in some ways I’m glad I didn’t go as I’ve already said I have a lot of experience of working with Plutonium and it’s not an Isotope you want to mess with as you only need the tiniest invisible speck to do you serious harm especially if it’s breathed in, it’s an incredibly toxic material that’s best avoided. I feel so sorry for the poor sod’s who were first used during the minor trial tests and then the subsequent Brumbi 1 so called clean up that was conducted in the mid 1960’s, incredibly they were never told what they were dealing with or what the true dangers were, and they were never given any contamination monitoring assistance or protective clothing of any sort and had no warning of what lay in wait for them, the same goes for the indigenous population they were kept in the dark about the sites legacy. If you ask me someone should have been hung for even thinking of burning Plutonium metal in the open air let alone sending people into harm’s way like they did, it was effectively a death sentence.
  • I notice that in google maps this area is blurred out and cannot be zoomed in....at least with Wikimaps there are people like you to advise us as to what the inherent dangers there are for visiting this area... thanks very much... will avoid the region like the plague. And it looks like it is a stunning area, what a shame.
  • хахах поржал))))
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This article was last modified 13 years ago