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 While
the primary purpose of the Nevada Test site has been to test nuclear weapons.
From 1951 to 1992, a total of 928 tests were conducted at the site. Project
plowshare, begun in 1958, sought to develop peaceful uses for nuclear
explosives.
These
tests were designed to show that nuclear devices could quickly and cheaply
move massive amounts of earth in the digging of canals and harbors. The
Sedan test, July 6, 1962, was part of this program.
More
about the Sedan Crater:
 The
104 kiloton thermonuclear device was buried 635 feet below ground level.- The force of the
detonation released seismic energy equivalent to an earthquake of 4.75
magnitude on the Richter Scale.
- The blast moved
6.5 million cubic yards of earth and rock up to 290 feet in the air.
- The resulting crater
was 1280 feet across and 320 feet deep.
- The sedan test
sent a cloud of radioactivity towards Salt Lake City.
- The Sedan Crater
was entered into the National Register of Historic Places on April 1,
1995.
- The test was one
of 27 conducted under the Atomic Anergy Commission's Plowshare program.
- The plowshare
program was halted in the bid 1970's because of disappointing results
and the inability to contain the radioactivity.
- The Nevada Test
Site is larger than the state of Rhode Island (1,350 square miles).
- It Opened in December
1950, the site's first nuclear device test, dubbed Able, was an air-drop
on January 27, 1951.
 LaTomya
Glass, Public Relations Officer:
"I like to see the reactions of people when they see the crater -
they say "did we actually do this can human hands actually make a
crater that is so large that it looks like its been there forever?"
Its not even 50 years old but its something that people are really amazed
when they see it."
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