The first detonation was Castle Bravo, which tested a new design utilizing a dry-fuel thermonuclear bomb.
#Bikini atoll explosion series
The second series of tests in 1954 was codenamed Operation Castle. Seaborg, the longest-serving chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, called the second test "the world's first nuclear disaster."
It produced a large Wilson cloud and contaminated all of the target ships. The second, Baker, was suspended under a barge. Able was dropped from an aircraft and detonated 520 ft (160 m) above the target fleet. The first series of tests over Bikini Atoll in July 1946 was codenamed Operation Crossroads. The United States and its allies were engaged in a Cold War nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union to build more advanced bombs from 1947 until 1991. The test weapons produced a combined fission yield of 42.2 Mt of TNT in explosive power. Tests occurred at 7 test sites on the reef itself, on the sea, in the air, and underwater. Nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll consisted of the detonation of 23 nuclear weapons by the United States between 19 on Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Map all coordinates in "Nuclear testing at Bikini Atoll" using: OpenStreetMap It was organized as a secret test, but it quickly became an international incident, prompting calls for a ban on the atmospheric testing of thermonuclear devices. The fallout spread traces of radioactive material as far as Australia, India, and Japan, and even to the United States and parts of Europe. The size of the Castle Bravo test on Mafar exceeded expectations, causing widespread radioactive contamination.