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Bikini Atoll:Paradise with an asterik
Posted on 9/24/13 at 7:38 pm
Posted on 9/24/13 at 7:38 pm
Article is about a year old, but really interesting. I think everyone knows the Bikini Atoll was used for testing, but I'd bet most don't know how many tests occurred or the effects of the locals who inhabited the islands. Figured some might enjoy the read.
LINK
quote:
There is just one problem, though you could stare at this palm grove for a lifetime and never see it. The soil under our feet, whitish gray in color with flecks of coral, contains a radioactive isotope called cesium 137. In high enough doses, it can burn you and kill you quickly; at lower levels, it just takes longer to do the job, eventually causing cancer. The soil itself is not dangerous to touch. The danger lies in the plant life that takes it in, and in the animal life, like the huge coconut crabs that live on the island and eat the plants. The cesium 137 is fallout, a word introduced to the world during the systematic detonation, from 1946 to 1958, of 23 nuclear weapons by the U.S. army on Bikini Atoll.
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And then, suddenly, we were there: a patch of midnight blue water in the transparent shallows of the lagoon. This was the Bravo crater, a mile wide and more than 200 feet deep, a place where imagination fails. The hydrogen bomb that was detonated on this spot on March 1, 1954, created a fireball four miles wide and raised the temperature of the lagoon water to 99,000 degrees. The blast was 1,000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb and nearly three times stronger than its creators expected. It shook islands 250 miles away. It vaporized three islands in the atoll. And it killed every living thing in the air, on land, and in the sea for miles around.
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It’s ironic that, even as financial woes have all but ended the Bikinians’ efforts to return, the prospects for bringing radiation down to acceptable levels are better today than ever before. A March 2012 assessment from Lawrence Livermore Laboratory is strikingly upbeat. One of its recent findings is that levels of cesium 137 are dropping far faster than anyone had predicted. Though the isotope’s radiological half-life is 30 years, its environmental—or actual—half-life is only nine.
“Conditions have really changed on Bikini,” says Terry Hamilton, scientific director of Livermore’s Marshall Islands assessments. “They are improving at an accelerated rate. By using the combined option of removing soil and adding potassium, we can get very close to the 15 millirem standard. That has been true for roughly the past 10 years. So now is the time when the Bikinians, if they desired, could go back.”
LINK
This post was edited on 9/24/13 at 7:42 pm
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Posted on 9/24/13 at 7:41 pm to Alahunter
Actually I own a DVD program on the Bikini Atoll. Scuba divers were surprised to find life absolutely thriving in the hot zone.
Posted on 9/24/13 at 7:42 pm to mizzoukills
The one with the Allstate guy? I saw that, it was neat. The article describes how they dove on the Saratoga once, after 10 minutes, they left, due to so many shark eyes on them. 
Posted on 9/24/13 at 7:50 pm to Alahunter
Cesium 137 is the same radiation that Chernobyl released when Reactor 4 melted down.
Posted on 9/24/13 at 7:52 pm to Alahunter
Cool stuff 
Posted on 9/24/13 at 8:00 pm to Alahunter
It would be really awesome and freaky to be there. The same with Chernobyl.
Did you know that you can actually request access to Nevada's National Security Site, the area 65 miles north of Las Vegas where nuclear testing was conducted in the 50s and 60s?
They give monthly tours, but you must submit your request months ahead of time so that they can run a thorough background check on you before granting access.
I have wanted to do this for a long time.
Did you know that you can actually request access to Nevada's National Security Site, the area 65 miles north of Las Vegas where nuclear testing was conducted in the 50s and 60s?
They give monthly tours, but you must submit your request months ahead of time so that they can run a thorough background check on you before granting access.
I have wanted to do this for a long time.
Posted on 9/24/13 at 8:03 pm to mizzoukills
quote:
It would be really awesome and freaky to be there. The same with Chernobyl
Agree. I'd go if I had the opportunity.
quote:
Did you know that you can actually request access to Nevada's National Security Site, the area 65 miles north of Las Vegas where nuclear testing was conducted in the 50s and 60s?
Posted on 9/24/13 at 8:22 pm to Alahunter
The NNSS also contains Area 51, though that is not a part of the nuclear gun range.
Posted on 9/25/13 at 7:04 am to Alahunter
I've been on the Nevada Test Site.
Cesium 137 is a gamma ray emitter source for nuclear logging tools. It is not a nice material. I've seen pictures where a rig hand put a lost source in his back pocket (he didn't make it) .
Lost logging sources (cesium 137, Am241Be, etc.) are a source of raw material for dirty bombs, so it's a big deal when one gets lost.
Cesium 137 is a gamma ray emitter source for nuclear logging tools. It is not a nice material. I've seen pictures where a rig hand put a lost source in his back pocket (he didn't make it) .
Lost logging sources (cesium 137, Am241Be, etc.) are a source of raw material for dirty bombs, so it's a big deal when one gets lost.
Posted on 9/25/13 at 9:27 am to Alahunter
Very interesting...thanks for posting
Posted on 9/25/13 at 9:39 am to thekid
You should read about Operation Plowshare in the 1960s. The government tested nuclear explosions as construction devices.
One of the tests involved 5 simultaneous nuclear explosions to attempt to create an artificial harbor.
If successful, the government/military planned to create the first nuclear harbor in Cape Thompson, Alaska. Fortunately for the Alaskans, the test did not yield expected results.
Posted on 9/25/13 at 9:42 am to SWCBonfire
quote:
Cesium 137 is a gamma ray emitter source for nuclear logging tools. It is not a nice material. I've seen pictures where a rig hand put a lost source in his back pocket (he didn't make it) .
Yikes
Posted on 9/25/13 at 9:55 am to TbirdSpur2010
Most people don't realize that we're already living in the era of nuclear terrorism. Case in point: The death of Alexander Litvinenko.
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Alexander Litvinenko was a former officer of the Russian Federal Security Service, FSB and KGB, who fled from court prosecution in Russia and received political asylum in the United Kingdom. According to his wife and father, he was working for MI6 and MI5 after receiving the asylum.
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On 1 November 2006, Litvinenko suddenly fell ill. Earlier that day he had met two former KGB officers, Andrey Lugovoy and Dmitry Kovtun. Lugovoy is a former bodyguard of Russian ex-Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar (also reportedly poisoned in November 2006) and former chief of security for the Russian TV channel ORT. Kovtun is now a businessman. Litvinenko had also had lunch at Itsu, a sushi restaurant on Piccadilly in London, with an Italian acquaintance and "nuclear waste expert", Mario Scaramella, to whom he reportedly made allegations regarding Romano Prodi's connections with the KGB. Scaramella, attached to the Mitrokhin Commission investigating KGB penetration of Italian politics, claimed to have information on the death of Anna Politkovskaya, 48, a journalist who was killed at her Moscow apartment in October 2006. He passed Litvinenko papers supposedly concerning her fate. On 20 November, it was reported that Scaramella had gone into hiding and feared for his life.
quote:
Shortly after his death, the UK's Health Protection Agency (HPA) stated that tests had established Litvinenko had significant amounts of the radionuclide polonium-210 (210Po) in his body. British and US government sources both said the use of 210Po as a poison had never been documented before, and this was probably the first time a person has been tested for the presence of 210Po in his or her body. The poison was in Litvinenko's tea cup. People who had contact with Litvinenko may also have been exposed to radiation
quote:
Why I believe Putin wanted me dead. In his last statement he said about Putin: ...this may be the time to say one or two things to the person responsible for my present condition. You may succeed in silencing me but that silence comes at a price. You have shown yourself to be as barbaric and ruthless as your most hostile critics have claimed. You have shown yourself to have no respect for life, liberty or any civilised value. You have shown yourself to be unworthy of your office, to be unworthy of the trust of civilised men and women. You may succeed in silencing one man but the howl of protest from around the world will reverberate, Mr Putin, in your ears for the rest of your life. May God forgive you for what you have done, not only to me but to beloved Russia and its people.
quote:
How was he poisoned? The polonium poison was dumped into his tea at a bar. Said the waiter:
"When I poured the remains of the teapot into the sink, the tea looked more yellow than usual and was thicker – it looked gooey." "I scooped it out of the sink and threw it into the bin. I was so lucky I didn't put my fingers into my mouth, or scratch my eye as I could have got this poison inside me."
This post was edited on 9/25/13 at 10:00 am
Posted on 9/25/13 at 9:57 am to mizzoukills
Much love for ya killz, but I'm already forced to read enough walls of text while writing this research paper for my class
Hook ya boi up with some cliffs?
Hook ya boi up with some cliffs?
Posted on 9/25/13 at 10:02 am to TbirdSpur2010
TBird,
I love ya, bro, but that took me exactly 37 seconds to read. Cliffs won't do it justice. Just take a break for a moment and read it.
Pretty frightening.
I love ya, bro, but that took me exactly 37 seconds to read. Cliffs won't do it justice. Just take a break for a moment and read it.
Pretty frightening.
Posted on 9/25/13 at 10:11 am to mizzoukills
I'll read it later, then, but I got the gist. My attention span is shot and I'm tired as hell. Probably hit the hay here in a few
Posted on 9/25/13 at 10:26 am to Alahunter
Great read thanks for posting
Posted on 9/25/13 at 5:30 pm to mizzoukills
quote:
Actually I own a DVD program on the Bikini Atoll. Scuba divers were surprised to find life absolutely thriving in the hot zone.
Same results and surprise by observers in Chernobyl.
LINK
Posted on 9/25/13 at 5:42 pm to Alahunter
I've driven past the Trinity site. You can only go out there two times a year.
And you definitely feel like you're being watched out there.
And you definitely feel like you're being watched out there.
This post was edited on 9/25/13 at 5:43 pm
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