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The Nevada Test Site is a United States Department of Energy reservation located about 65 miles (105 km) northwest
of the City of Las Vegas. Formerly known as the Nevada Proving
Ground the site, established on January 11, 1951 for the testing of nuclear weapons, is composed
of approximately 1,350 square miles (3,500 kmē) of desert and mountainous terrain. Nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site began with a one-kiloton bomb dropped on Frenchman Flats on January 27, 1951.
- 1,100 buildings
- 400 miles (600 km) paved roads
- 300 miles (500 km) unpaved roads
- 10 heliports
- 2 airstrips
Between 1951 and 1992, there were a total of 925 announced nuclear tests at Nevada Test Site, 825 of them were underground
(seismic data has indicated there may have been many unannounced underground tests as well). The site is covered with subsidence
craters from the testing. [1] The Nevada
Test Site was the primary testing location of American atomic bombs, only 129 tests were conducted elsewhere (many at the
Marshall Islands).
On July 17, 1962 the test shot "Little
Feller I" of Operation Sunbeam became the last atmospheric test detonation at the Nevada Test Site. Underground testing continued
until September 1992. One notable test shot was the "Sedan" shot of Opearation Storax, a
104 kt shot (one of, if not the, largest shots at the Site) which sought to prove that nuclear weapons could be used for peaceful
means in creating bays or canals -- it created a crater 1,280 feet (390 m) wide and 320 feet (100 m) deep.
In a report by the National Cancer Institute, released in 1997, it was determined that ninety atmospheric tests at
the Nevada Test Site deposited high levels of radioactive iodine-131 (150 million curies) across a large portion of the contiguous United States, especially in the years 1952, 1953, 1955, and
1957 -- doses large enough, they determined, to produce 10,000 to 75,000 cases of thyroid cancer.
In 1993, residents living near the Nevada Test Site were included in the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, 1,375 claims were honored (1,121 were denied).
The Site is home to Area 51 and the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage facility.
See also
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