Storax Sedan was a shallow underground nuclear test conducted in Area 10 of Yucca Flat at the Nevada National Security Site on July 6, 1962, as part of Operation Plowshare, a program to investigate the use of nuclear weapons for mining, cratering, and other civilian purposes. The radioactive fallout from the test contaminated more US residents than any other nuclear test. The Sedan Crater is the largest human-made crater in the United States and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Storax Sedan explosion.
The Sedan crater
Observation decks at Sedan Crater
Panorama of the Crater with Russian thistle tumbleweed accumulating at the bottom.
Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the performance, yield, and effects of nuclear weapons. Testing nuclear weapons offers practical information about how the weapons function, how detonations are affected by different conditions, and how personnel, structures, and equipment are affected when subjected to nuclear explosions. However, nuclear testing has often been used as an indicator of scientific and military strength. Many tests have been overtly political in their intention; most nuclear weapons states publicly declared their nuclear status through a nuclear test.
The mushroom cloud from the Castle Bravo thermonuclear weapon test in 1954, the largest nuclear weapons test ever conducted by the United States
Subcritical experiment at the Nevada National Security Site
The Phoenix of Hiroshima (foreground) in Hong Kong Harbor in 1967, was involved in several famous anti-nuclear protest voyages against nuclear testing in the Pacific.
The first atomic test, "Trinity", took place on July 16, 1945.