![]() However, of the other nine stations that were studied by aerial photography, there was no pinyon nor juniper mortality found at six of them although each station was farther from surface zero. At 500 ft from surface zero, 38 percent of the pinyon trees and 29 percent of the juniper trees were found dead after detonation based on data from a single one-fifth acre plot. At 10,000 ft from surface zero, damage occurred primarily because of the incidence of cliffs in the plot areas. Fresh rock movements were noted in flat areas and especially along cliffs. more » Most of the damage obvious during the summer of detonation occurred from falling rock. Evaluation of tree and shrub damage along two radiating transects indicated that numerous trees were damaged or killed. Nonradiation effects, principally those related to ground motion, on the natural vegetation, primarily pinyon/juniper woodland, in the vicinity of project Almendro were studied. As of the date of this report, surface subsidence of the surface zero site had not occurred. ![]() The yield of the nuclear explosive was between 200 kilotons and one megaton of TNT equivalent. The detonation occurred 3490 feet below ground surface. With the possible exception of damage to aged junipers this investigation did not reveal any good evidence of immediate effects from underground testing on vegetation beyond that recognized earlier as the edge = ,Īlmendro was an underground, contained nuclear weapons test conducted at The Nevada Test Site on June 6, 1973. There was also evidence at Boxcar of tree damage which antedated the nuclear testing program, presumably from natural earthquakes. Both trees and shrubs were killed along tectonic faults, which became the path for earth fractures, and along fractures and rock falls elsewhere. Because of the subsidence phenomenology, shock propagation through the earth and along the surface, and the resulting fractures, shrubs were killed at Boxcar around the perimeter of the subsidence crater. In this study to estimate the potential injury to vegetation from earth movement caused by underground nuclear detonations and to estimate the extent to which this may have occurred at NTS, two explosions in the megaton range on Pahute Mesa were studied in some detail: Boxcar, which caused a surface subsidence, and Benham, which did not.
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