Date

Sep 19, 1957

Description

If any at the AEC had hoped that radiation would dissipate, this UCLA report, Janet Farrell Brodie later explained, “gave even less reassurance as the investigators resurveyed areas studied earlier and corrected earlier findings.” Using new data, the report found that that “the area originally contaminated by fall-out from the Trinity detonation was greater than the 1,100 square miles estimated by the 1948 survey,” although a square mile estimate was not provided. The researchers found plutonium “in amounts up to 0.007 micrograms per square foot of soil, one-half inch deep, at a distance of 88 miles northeast of the site of detonation,” with even more, l07 micrograms per square foot, on the Chupadera Mesa 28 miles northeast of the detonation site. Thus, there had been “no appreciable decrease in plutonium content of the soils … due to erosional factors.”

Source

DOE Open-Net

Document published in following posting(s):

The First Atomic Explosion, 16 July 1945

Jul 16, 2024