Project SHOAL Virtual Cache
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Shoal Underground nuclear test site
One of two major underground nuclear tests in Nevada that were performed off the Nevada Test Site. Conducted on October 26, 1963, Shoal was an experiment to study earthquake effects.
At precisely 10 a.m., a 12.5 kiloton nuclear bomb was exploded 1,205 feet underground. A bright magnesium flare marked the exact moment of detonation. For the length of a suspended breath, nothing happened. Then, those observing the blast from a distance of 4000 feet were "jarred by a severe ground shock.... Four seconds after the blast, a loud roar filled the air and a cloud of dust a thousand feet long began to rise over ground zero" (Fallon Eagle-Standard, October 29, 1963). The explosion vaporized the surrounding rock, forming a radioactive underground cavity, approximately 166 feet in diameter and 446 feet in height.
The site has a marker that was installed near the remnants of the original Atomic Energy Commission marker that commemorated the 1963 test. The original cement monument, erected at the surface ground zero point of the blast, was built by the AEC soon after the Shoal test, but was itself mysteriously blown up sometime in the early 1980's. There are other visible remnants of the test at the site, including cement pads, and a shaft portal.
Project Shoal websites:
Project Shoal
Center for Land Use Interpretation
Device Emplacement Schematic
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