Sedan Crater

USA / Nevada / Indian Springs /
 military, NRHP - National Register of Historic Places, nuclear testing area, bomb/explosion crater
Sedan was a shallow underground nuclear test conducted at the Nevada Test Site at 37.177048° N 116.046653° W by the United States on July 6, 1962 as part of Operation Plowshare program to investigate the use of nuclear weapons for mining, cratering, and other civilian purposes.

The blast had a yield of 104 kilotons (435 terajoules) and displaced more than 11 million tonnes (12 million short tons) of soil and resulted in a radioactive cloud that rose to an altitude of 3.7 km (12,000 feet). The radioactive dust plume headed northeast and then east towards the Mississippi River. It created a crater 100 m (320 feet) deep and 390 m (1,280 feet) wide. It is about 21 km (13 miles) away from Area 51


www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssLZ4bUTDYM
Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sedan_Crater
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   37°10'37"N   116°2'46"W

Comments

  • This ties in with what I recall very well, back in the 1960's, of the news media reporting about the possibilities being studied of creating more Atlantic/Pacific connection canals in Central America to supplement the Panama Canal. I remember, very vividly, about the proposed use of nuclear explosives to excavate the trenches for the proposed canal construction. And here we see the testing that went on for the feasibility of that. Nice!
  • Ah yes,nukes to solve all our engineering problems. Need a big hole dug?Then we've got a Nuke for you! Need a mountain gone?Then we've got a nuke for you! We have even got are home kits for those around the house projects! Tired of raking up all those leaves EVERY winter.Why just blast those pesky trees with "Mr Kilofun"! Heres how to order.
  • Oh, come on now. Living in the 50's and 60's and 70's was so much more fun than it is today. The kids really don't know what they are missing. This is why they have video games to pretend they are waging war with nukes. We had the real deal.
  • nobody knows about nukes today, a few weeks ago, i said that i found a place i could buy uranium 238 (to test my homemade giger counter), and i had a 12 year old say i was going to set it on fire, and it would explode, and the government would find out i set off a nuke
  • Took the monthly DOE tour after a number of Lab friends told me about it. Have stood on that cat walk. And not wikimapia has the buggy trench test under "buggy project" small than Sedan, but in its way more impressive than Sedan.
  • P.S. The real question is where are the Soviet equivalents to Sedan and buggy? I've seen parts of their test facilities in google earth. And I can see Russians have annotated other tests.
  • If you have ever watched Mulholland Falls with Nick Nolte, they stand on the edge of this crater...I heard there are tours to the Yucca flats Kind of want to see it but still find it ominous.
  • The Soviet equivalent to Sedan was Chagan. The set it off right next to a river, so that it created an artificial lake. You can read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chagan_(nuclear_test)
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