Word: cannikin
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...great sea waves, known as tsunamis, that often follow them. Environmentalists made dire predictions of a wildlife massacre. Nonetheless, the test took place, and it did not cause serious tremors or lasting environmental damage. Instead, after months of careful analysis, U.S. Government scientists now report that the Cannikin blast may well have provided some highly beneficial information. The fluctuations in the earth's magnetic field that resulted from the blast, they say, could help in the development of an accurate method of predicting major earthquakes...
That conclusion, by Wilfred P. Hasbrouck and Joe H. Allen of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is based on readings from magnetometers set up on Amchitka before Cannikin. Sensitive instruments were placed on each side of one of the faults that cross the thin 42-mile-long Aleutian island. A magnetometer on the side where the nuclear device was detonated quickly registered an increase of nine gammas* in the local magnetic field. On the opposite side of the fault from ground zero, the intensity of the magnetic field was found to have dropped by as much as eleven gammas...
Scientists have known that the buildup of stresses in the earth before dangerous quakes is often accompanied by slight changes in the magnetism of local rock. But there have been few measurements of that geopiezomagnetic effect before or during actual quakes. With more data like those gathered during Cannikin, Hasbrouck and Allen hope, scientists should be able to determine accurately the relationship between accumulated stress and the magnetic changes in an earthquake zone. Then, by monitoring the magnetic field, they may well be able to forecast serious upheavals...
...underground water seep out of the radioactive blast area? Not for several thousand years, says Dr. James Carothers, and AEC's scientific adviser on the island. As to Cannikin's effect on wildlife, the body count so far includes two sea otters, two seals, 13 birds of various species and an undetermined number of fish. In addition, one peregrine falcon nest and three eagle nests-all unoccupied-were destroyed when the ground heaved around them...
Despite the government's last-minute success in court, the victory is far from complete. The furor over Cannikin is but the latest expression of citizen discontent with the relatively unchecked freedom with which weapons are commissioned, tested and deployed. In the years since World War II, there have been approximately 500 atomic-and hydrogen-bomb tests disclosed by the AEC, almost all accepted without serious challenge in Congress or across the country. Those days are clearly over...