Atomic Testing in Mississippi: Project Dribble and the Quest for Nuclear Weapons Treaty Verification in the Cold War Era

摘要

This work, based on the author's doctoral dissertation, explores and explains a little-known pair of nuclear detonation tests-the only two conducted in the United States east of the Mississippi River-in Project Dribble. In October and December 1964, the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) exploded two nuclear devices deep in a salt dome under the surface of rural Mississippi. The tests were conducted to determine whether nuclear weapons testing in an underground cavity could successfully evade detection by seismograph through "decoupling" the explosive force from the surrounding earth. Prior to the signing of treaties between the United States and the Soviet Union limiting or banning underground tests, the AEC and the State Department wanted to know whether it would be possible to verify that the Soviet Union (or other nations, either signatories to the treaties or new nuclear weapon-equipped states) could successfully test weapons without being detected. Follow-up tests in the underground cavity created by the first test, named "Salmon," included "Sterling," a very small nuclear detonation. Later tests conducted up through 1970 with high explosives or explosive methane-oxygen gas mixtures in the cavity created by Salmon continued to evaluate the seismic effect of decoupled detonations.