How The #Trinity #Nuclear Test Spread #Radioactive #Fallout Across #America

Story by The Physics arXiv Blog, July 26, 2023

"The #TrinityNuclearTest on 16 July 1945 is a key incident in the blockbuster #Oppenheimer movie and in the history of humankind. Many scientists think it marks the beginning of the #Anthropocene, a new geological era characterized by humanity’s influence on the Earth. That’s because Trinity’s radioactive fallout will forever appear in the geological record, creating a unique signature of human activity that can be precisely dated.

"But there’s a problem. In 1945, radioactive monitoring techniques were in their infancy so there are few direct measurements of fallout beyond the test site. What’s more, #weather patterns were also less well understood so the spread of fallout could not be easily determined.

"As a result, nobody really knows how widely Trinity’s fallout spread across the U.S. or indeed, how the fallout dispersed from other atmospheric nuclear tests on the U.S. mainland.

"Today, that changes thanks to the work of Sébastien Philippe at Princeton University and colleagues. This team have used a state-of-the art weather simulation for the 5 days after each nuclear test to simulate how the fallout would have dispersed.

"The result is the highest resolution estimate ever made of the spread of radioactive fallout across the U.S. It marks the start of the Anthropocene with extraordinary precision and it throws up some significant surprises. Some parts of the U.S. are known to have received high levels of fallout and the new work is consistent with this. But the research also reveals some parts of the US that received significant fallout without anybody realizing.

"The findings 'provide an opportunity for re-evaluating the public health and environmental implications from atmospheric nuclear testing,' say Philippe and co.

"Between 1945 and 1962, the U.S. conducted 94 atmospheric nuclear tests that generated yields of up to 74 kilotons of TNT. (Seven other tests were damp squibs.) 93 of these tests took place in #Nevada but the first, the Trinity test in the Oppenheimer film, took place in #NewMexico.

"The new work also has implications for the way compensation is paid to people who suffered from radiation exposure. The U.S Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (#RECA) provides monetary compensation for this in various counties and #tribal lands.

"But the new work reveals places that are not covered by the Act but that also received high exposure. 'There are locations in New Mexico, and in other parts of the United States, including #Utah, #Nevada, #Wyoming, #Colorado, #Arizona, and #Idaho, where #radionuclide deposition reached levels larger than those we estimate in some counties covered by RECA,' say the researchers.

"That’s interesting work with important implications. And it has been released in conjunction with the Oppenheimer movie, presumably to give it maximum exposure, and rightly so."

Read more: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/how-the-trinity-nuclear-test-spread-radioactive-fallout-across-america/ar-AA1eoKOO?rc=1&ocid=winp1taskbar&cvid=e61565dc134048fff5b26a96c84eb708&ei=10

#NoNukes #NoWar #NuclearWeapons