Bikini Atoll Research Articles

The Maritime Cultural Landscape of the Simulated Nuclear Battlefield at Bikini Atoll

The Maritime Cultural Landscape of the Simulated Nuclear Battlefield at Bikini Atoll

Atoms and ashes: from Bikini Atoll to Fukushima

Atoms and ashes: from Bikini Atoll to Fukushima

Atomic Art Around a Hot Bikini Cloud, 1946

The nuclear tests conducted by the U.S. on Bikini Atoll in the summer of 1946 marked the advent of the Atomic Age. The fascination with the Bomb and the fears of its destructive potential were processed and often trivialized in American visual culture and entertainment. The anxieties over nuclear power alongside the breakdown of East-West relations in 1946 also impacted on art. This article explores some of the consequences of the events of 1946 for art exhibitions, critics, and artists, such as Newman and Pollock. Their work responded both to the new nuclear reality and the desire to forge a modern American art and identity, distinct from European, especially French models. Their assertive approaches contrast with the strategies by Wols and Bram Van Velde in Paris, who insisted on the derisory importance of their project in light of atomic power and the Cold War.

The Rest Is History

The Rest Is History

Initial Strontium-90 concentrations in ocean sediment from the northern Marshall Islands

The United States detonated 67 nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands from 1946 to 1958. While there has been significant study of the aftereffects of these explosions over the decades that followed, few values of strontium-90 (90Sr) contamination have been reported. Sediment cores from the Bravo test crater in Bikini Atoll and Lacrosse crater near Runit Island (Enewetak Atoll) were assessed for 90Sr and cesium-137 (137Cs) concentrations, which were found to be measurable in all cores. 90Sr values were found to be roughly consistent across the tested cores. Ratios of 90Sr/137Cs are elevated compared to values measured previously at other sites of weapons testing and nuclear accidents. These findings suggest the need to further investigate 90Sr concentrations in the northern Marshall Islands to assess the safety of current residents in light of the potential for 90Sr conveyance and to provide input regarding resettlement of currently unoccupied islands and atolls.

Are Sunken Warships Biodiversity Havens for Corals?

Coral reefs are threatened by climate change, overfishing, and pollution. Artificial reefs may provide havens for corals, both to escape warming surface waters and to assist in the geographic migration of corals to more habitable natural reef conditions of the future. The largest artificial reefs have been generated by nearly 2000 shipwrecks around the world, but the coral diversity on these wrecks is virtually unknown. Ship size and hull material, location relative to natural reef, time since sinking, ocean currents, and water depth may affect coral diversity. As a test of the biodiversity capacity of very large sunken structures relative to surrounding natural reef, we carried out technical diver-based surveys to quantify genus-level coral diversity on 29 warships sunk in Bikini Atoll and Chuuk Lagoon. We also assessed whether ship length, as an index of substrate availability, and water depth, as an indicator of light and temperature, can serve as predictors of coral diversity. We surveyed a total of 9105 scleractinian corals. The total number of genera identified at Bikini was 34, and at Chuuk it was 51, representing 67% and 72% of genera found on natural reefs at Bikini and Chuuk, respectively. Ship length, but not water depth, was positively correlated with relative abundance and richness at the genus level. Our results suggest that very large wrecks can serve as havens for reef-building corals with a broad genetic diversity, expressed at the genus level, commensurate with corals found on neighboring natural reefs. The role of large artificial reefs could include protecting coral biodiversity from warming surface waters.

Ultrasensitive detection of 244Pu in environmental samples by accelerator mass spectrometry

Plutonium radiochemical separation using TEVA resin and chemical recoveries determined by alpha spectrometry. Zero background measurement of 244Pu by AMS from environmental sediments from Bikini Atoll island and the Pacific Ocean.

Nuclear Soundscapes: Exploring Sound in Radioactive Environments

Just after World War II, mounting evidence marked the dawn of the geological epoch dubbed the Anthropocene. Nuclear explosions deposited radioactive debris in the geological strata, combined with an acceleration in resource extraction, population growth and energy consumption. In this light, this paper aims to explore the affective dimensions of the multiplicities of sounds that are interconnected to nuclear materialities. We argue that mediations of nuclear sounds in these forms of audio instances render nuclear sounds comprehensible and challenge existing representations of nuclear power. This paper will bring into conversation an archive of soundscapes of the nuclear epoch – for example the sound of beeping in a nuclear power plant that produces electricity, the Geiger-Müller counters that civilians used following the Fukushima-Daichii plant explosion, and the music composition by JLiat of the sonic representation of atomic testing on Bikini Atoll in 1946. Engaging with these sounds serves to make sense of the nuclear sublime and offer a possibility of connecting with the “otherness” of nuclear materials. These sonic instances also bind people in collective ecological experiences, whilst making us more attuned to voicing the modalities of a damaged planet. Sound can serve as an articulation of affects that emerge between human and non-human materialities in a damaged planet. These conceptualizations of sound are used to articulate the ways individuals or groups embody their relationships to ecological environments. Through an interdisciplinary lens, the paper aims to explore the mechanics of sound in nuclear infrastructures and devices to challenge common metaphors about nuclear energy. Through the analysis of these soundscapes, we demonstrate that exposing these entanglements between human and nuclear materialities can help us make sense of the sociocultural dimensions of living in a radioactive planet. Article received: April 15, 2021; Article accepted: June 21, 2021; Published online: September 15, 2021; Original scholarly paper

Caulerpa Bikinensis (Chlorophyta) Preference for the Mesophotic Depths of Pacific Atolls1

The marine green alga Caulerpa bikinensis W. R. Taylor was described as a new species in 1950 from dredged specimens (37–57 m depth) from Bikini Atoll and Rongelap Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Its relative rareness in collections from waters less than 30 m deep from these atolls indicated that it favored the mesophotic coral ecosystem (MCE) at depths of 30–150 m. Published and unpublished records of this species over the past 70 years show its habitat preference on the seaward slopes of atolls and in lagoons. Observations were based on collections from Pacific atolls of the Marshall Islands, Tuamotu Islands, Chuuk State in the Federated States of Micronesia, Cook Islands, and Johnston Atoll, and on the deep lagoonal reefs of Palau. Caulerpa bikinensis has also been recorded in shallow waters 1 m deep in dark microcavities on lagoonal pinnacles at Takapoto Atoll (Tuamotu Islands) and in Chuuk Lagoon, and 2 m deep at Raroia Atoll (Tuamotu Islands). Caulerpa bikinensis favors the deeper depths of the MCE for its low light intensity rather than its cooler temperature, and definitely shows a strong affinity to the high energy seaward slopes of calcareous Pacific atolls.

In situ measurement of cesium-137 contamination in fruits from the northern Marshall Islands

Radioactive contamination of fruits in the northern Marshall Islands, resulting from the US nuclear weapons testing program in the 1940s and 1950s, is still a human health concern, in particular pertaining to island population resettlement and the economic benefit from farming. Over 200 fruits, primarily coconuts and pandanus, were collected on 11 islands from four atolls in the northern Marshall Islands in 2017. The energy spectra from nuclear gamma decays were measured on a research vessel for each fruit in situ. From these recordings, the level of cesium-137 (137Cs) contamination was determined for individual fruits. Comparisons of the results are made to past studies and international food safety standards. There is a broad distribution of values, ranging from below detectable radiation levels to relatively high levels; safety concerns are largest for Bikini Island. A noticeable fraction of fruits from Bikini have significantly higher levels of 137Cs contamination compared with those from all other measured islands.

Arai Takashi and Nagashima Yurie through the Historical Frame of “Japanese Photography”

Arai Takashi and Nagashima Yurie through the Historical Frame of “Japanese Photography” Nakamura Fumiko (bio) and Kevin Niehaus (bio) Translated by Mai Hayano (bio) Click for larger view View full resolution 15.2. Arai Takashi, A Maquette for a Multiple Monument for the Wristwatch Dug Up from Ueno-machi, Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum, 2014. © Arai Takashi. Courtesy of the artist. [End Page 204] Many artists working with photography today have begun to deviate from the two-dimensional traditional format of the medium and are extending their artistic range to include installation art, video, and performances. It has therefore become extremely difficult to identify the techniques and forms of expression that the term “photography” indicates. In light of these global trends, this essay examines Arai Takashi (b. 1978) and Nagashima Yurie (b. 1973), two renowned Japanese artists of the 2010s, by considering their work against the backdrop of the genealogy of Japanese photography. At present, both artists have broken with utilizing the traditional two-dimensional surface and instead are creating works that encompass a broad range of expression, including video, writings, and installation art. Tying their work to the history of Japanese photography therefore includes the risk of producing a critique that runs counter to their current interdisciplinary activities. Yet, the themes in their work, including the transformation of private life into art, as well as the representation of nuclear issues in a country with a history of being attacked by the atomic bomb, are nevertheless characteristic of the field of Japanese photography as a whole. Arai and Nagashima engage these characteristics endemic to the field and have proceeded to develop them from within the more focused discourse of contemporary art. It is for this reason that I resituate the pair within the history of Japanese photography, analyzing their art from the standpoint of their relationship to the genealogy of Japanese photographic expression. Specifically, I examine their individual works to trace both the history underpinning their production and how critics evaluate their work. Moreover, this essay attempts to illuminate the issues articulated by the field of Japanese photography and explore how these same issues are taken up by contemporary artists. By reexamining Arai’s and Nagashima’s work from within the limited scope of the history of Japanese photography, I will attempt to shed light on traits in their art that have been overlooked, with the hope that these individual elements can, in turn, be positioned vis-à-vis more universal issues. [End Page 205] On EXPOSED in a Hundred Suns Arai is widely known for his use of the classic technique of the daguerreotype. The daguerreotype is a unique artistic medium; equipped with a specific materiality, the image created can neither be duplicated nor reproduced as a paper print. The daguerreotype is specular, reflecting ambient light to draw the viewer deeper into the work. And, despite its incredibly high resolution, depending on the lighting and viewing angle the image can nevertheless give the impression of vanishing and reappearing. The daguerreotype is therefore characterized by both the intricate detail of the image and its larger instability. Arai first became interested in the issue of nuclear weapons in 2010 while researching art movements from the 1950s. He came across the history of the Lucky Dragon Incident (in which the Japanese fishing boat Lucky Dragon 5 was contaminated by radiation near the Bikini Atoll after the United States conducted a nuclear weapons test) and the movements to ban atomic and hydrogen bombs. After experiencing the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and the subsequent accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, he created two series of photographs: Here and There Tomorrow’s Islands (2011-), photographed in Fukushima and Tokyo, and EXPOSED in a Hundred Suns (2012-), in which he photographed objects related to nuclear weapons. This essay focuses on EXPOSED in a Hundred Suns, not only because the concepts of the photographic subject and the work of art here intersect with the technique of the daguerreotype in a unique manner, but also because the series engages the representation of nuclear weapons, which is consistently problematized across the history of Japanese photography. Click for larger view View full resolution 15.1. Arai Takashi, May 13...

Archaeological Survey of the Ex-USS Independence (CVL22)

In August 2016, a multidisciplinary team conducted the first archaeological survey of the deep-water (829 m) wreck of the ex-USS Independence (CVL22) using the remotely operated vehicles Argus and Hercules. The survey provided 34 h of direct observation with video and still camera documentation of the wreck, which the previous year had been initially identified with a limited three-dimensional sonar survey of the site. The 2016 assessment added considerably to an understanding of changes to Independence after its use as a target vessel for the 1946 atomic bomb tests at Bikini Atoll, as a radiological laboratory, training facility, and finally as a receptacle for “nuclear waste” prior to its scuttling off California in January 1951. The location and detailed examination of the wreck, along with additional archival research, offers a more nuanced definition of the carrier’s role within the context of the Cold War between the USSR, its adversaries and the race to establish nuclear supremacy, as well as site formation processes and ongoing biological colonization of the wreck site. As well, no evidence of residual radiological contamination was noted during the mission.

Dragonflies and Damselflies (Insecta: Odonata) of the Republic of the Marshall Islands

Seven species of Odonata are recorded from among the numerous atolls and midocean reef islands that make up the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI). They include two Zygoptera (damselflies: Tanymecosticta sp. and Ischnura aurora) and five Anisoptera (true dragonflies: Anax guttatus, Diplacodes bipunctata, Pantala flavescens, Tholymis tillarga, and Tramea transmarina). The damselfly Tanymecosticta sp. is known only from a single World War II–era extralimital record reported here for the first time. Breeding is confirmed for the six other species, which are widely distributed in the Pacific and often further afield. The frequently cited record of Pantala flavescens as being the first odonate and one of the first insects to colonize Bikini Atoll after cessation of nuclear testing requires verification. Additional surveys on many of the Marshall Islands not yet sampled for odonates will doubtless result in many new locality records. However, small island size, limited habitat diversity and water resources for breeding, and large distances from potential source populations contribute to an impoverished odonate fauna, and few, if any, species are likely to be added to the list. The six species known to inhabit the Marshall Islands make up the entire known odonate faunas of many other low, coralline islands in the West-central Pacific.

Children of Israel: US Military Imperialism and Marshallese Migration in the Poetry of Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner

In 1946, when the US government chose Bikini atoll as a nuclear testing site, the military governor of the Marshall Islands persuaded islanders to leave their homeland on the grounds that scientists were experimenting with nuclear technology “for the good of mankind and to end all world wars”. This rhetorical sleight-of-hand holds a bitterly ironic significance given that although the Bikini Islanders believed their exile would be temporary, the resulting environmental damage from various nuclear tests has rendered the atoll uninhabitable for an estimated 30,000 years. Although the dominant discourses surrounding nuclear testing have been consistently downplayed by a US government anxious to project a narrative in which the Bikini Islanders willingly left their ancestral lands, Marshallese are still dying as a result of corporeal and environmental irradiation, diseases resulting from a forced dependency on imported western foods, and the threat of further displacement due to rising sea levels through global warming. This essay explores the imperialist legacy of US nuclear testing and responses to it in the poetry of Marshallese eco-poet Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner’s protest literature. Her work indexes displacement, health problems and ongoing sociopolitical struggles of Marshallese diasporic communities through globalized political and technological platforms such as the Internet and climate change conferences to raise awareness of, and potentially gain redress for, the socio-economic and environmental problems faced by contemporary Pacific Islanders.

C&EN talks with Sam Kean, author of ‘Caesar’s Last Breath’

Breathe in. Statistically, that and every other breath you’ll ever take contains one of the roughly 25 sextillion molecules that Julius Caesar exhaled in his dying breath. That mind-boggling fact sets the stage for author Sam Kean’s latest book, appropriately titled “Caesar’s Last Breath: Decoding the Secrets of the Air Around Us.” Kean explores the components of the air we breathe with a stream of anecdotes about the science and scientists behind the molecules that make up our atmosphere. He takes the reader on a journey that wends through the early, fiery days on planet Earth to the atomic tests at Bikini Atoll, and from tumor surgery in a Boston operating theater to UFO landings in Roswell, N.M. After his first book, “The Disappearing Spoon,” about the elements, Kean took a break from chemistry, writing about genetics and the brain instead. Now he’s returned to the subject, sitting down with

The Postwar U.S. Policy toward Japan and the Revival of Japanese Technology: The Introduction of TV Broadcasting and Atomic Power in Japan and Hidetoshi Shibata by Kenzo Okuda

Reviewed by: The Postwar U.S. Policy toward Japan and the Revival of Japanese Technology: The Introduction of TV Broadcasting and Atomic Power in Japan and Hidetoshi Shibata by Kenzo Okuda Takuji Okamoto (bio) The Postwar U.S. Policy toward Japan and the Revival of Japanese Technology: The Introduction of TV Broadcasting and Atomic Power in Japan and Hidetoshi Shibata. By Kenzo Okuda. Okayama, Japan: University Education Press, 2015. Pp. vii+176. Kenzo Okuda is an independent historian of technology studying the relation between U.S. and UK foreign policy and Japanese technology during the cold war. Using mainly the manuscripts and documents of the Japanese journalist Hidetoshi Shibata, who mediated for the U.S. and Japanese agents, and the related materials housed at the U.S. National Archives, Karl Mundt Library, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum, and other sites, Okuda tries to detail the influence of U.S. foreign and military policy on the beginning of TV broadcasting and nuclear power in Japan. Okuda explains that after the breakout of the Korean War in 1950, Senator Karl Mundt, the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD), the U.S. Department of State, the U.S. Congress, and the U.S. occupation army were all eager to establish television broadcasting in Japan as anti-communist measures for psychological warfare. While Okuda admits that the Japanese side represented by Matsutaro Shoriki might have used the Americans’ backup only in order to reach his own goal of starting TV business in any way, the reader will at least comprehend that Japan’s eventual adoption of 6 MHz bandwidth and 525 scan lines was supported and favored by the DOD. This enabled the U.S. Army to use the Japanese facilities in an emergency and broadcast to the Japanese audience TV programs of Pacific Telecommunication Network, which provided commercial and military information in East Asia and Australia. Furthermore, the newspaper Yomiuri and the Nippon Television Network Corporation, led by Shoriki and Shibata, were instrumental in spreading propaganda for the peaceful use of nuclear power, especially when anti-nuclear sentiment grew after the hydrogen bomb testing on Bikini Atoll caused radiation exposure in twenty-three Japanese fishermen in March 1954. Okuda describes Shoriki and Shibata’s effort to coordinate the visit of John Hopkins, president of General Dynamics Corporation, Ernest O. Lawrence, Nobel laureate in physics, and Lawrence R. Hafstad, director of reactor development with the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. They met with politicians and scientists and gave lectures in Tokyo in May 1955, impressing the Japanese with their enthusiasm for a “new atomic age.” Yomiuri not only reported this event but also organized the nationwide Exhibition for Peaceful Use of Atomic Power as its own program for propaganda. Even before the Yomiuri publications, Shoriki and Shibata’s activities for introducing TV broadcasting and nuclear power in Japan were known. [End Page 885] Okuda, however, reveals their American counterparts’ behaviors by showing letters and documents that corresponded to those written or kept by Shibata. Though skeptical of the effectiveness of the Yomiuri Group’s propaganda, especially in the case of nuclear power, Okuda clarifies that their activities were suggested, regulated, or sometimes controlled by their American counterparts. Okuda also points to Shibata’s peculiar view of the relation between electronics and nuclear engineering. Shibata understood that in order to develop the world of atoms, one should master the world one step before, namely the world of electrons. He therefore started with TV broadcasting that adopted top technology of electronics. In his interpretation, this meant that success in TV business provided the technological and economic basis for welcoming the atomic age. The reader may be surprised how little this key person knew about what he introduced, though Okuda perhaps does not intend that. Takuji Okamoto Takuji Okamoto is a historian of science and technology. He mainly studies the political and cultural implication of science, technology, and higher education in the modernization of Japan. Copyright © 2017 Society for the History of Technology

Domination and Resistance: The United States and the Marshall Islands during the Cold War by Martha Smith-Norris

Reviewed by: Domination and Resistance: The United States and the Marshall Islands during the Cold War by Martha Smith-Norris Holly M Barker Domination and Resistance: The United States and the Marshall Islands during the Cold War, by Martha Smith-Norris. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2015. isbn 978-0-8248-4762-3, x + 159 pages, extensive endnotes, bibliography, index. Cloth, us $62.00. Anthropologists, journalists, and filmmakers examining the impacts of US militarism in the Marshall Islands are numerous and sometimes trip over one another during research. It is refreshing to have a trained historian provide perspectives from a different discipline, as each field of study brings its own methods and foci. Martha Smith-Norris's book supplements our collective knowledge about US Cold War activities in the Marshall Islands in many important ways. The sixty-five pages of endnotes and bibliography, as well as many photos in the text, include resources not discussed in other examinations of this topic and bring into clarity large-scale patterns of US behavior. Rather than treat US nuclear weapons testing and US missile testing in the Marshall Islands as two separate activities, the author shows how the missile testing is an evolution of US actions and motivations at its Pacific proving grounds that began with nuclear weapons tests in 1946 and continue with contemporary US activities on Kwajalein Atoll. Of critical importance to this history, Smith-Norris's archival sleuthing amplifies the contributions of Marshallese activists by documenting resistance to US military tests, including the sail-ins and sit-ins led by the landowners of Kwajalein. The archival research focuses on the ways that these protests embarrassed the United States or halted missile tests and on the fact that these resistance groups sometimes comprised mostly women. The impact of Marshallese protests on the military and political leadership in the United States becomes evident in source material Smith-Norris presents, such as the response of the US commander of the missile base in Kwajalein to the 1982 sit-in: "We should not underestimate the determination of the landowners … or their capacity to undertake further occupation measures calling for physical discomfort or even violent confrontation" (121). Through her archival research, Smith-Norris also amplifies the colonial arrogance of US Government practices, such as the takings of land without obtaining Marshallese consent, including the decision to use Bikini Atoll in 1946 for nuclear weapons tests: "For a sum of $10, the government of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands granted the United States the 'exclusive right to use and occupy' all of the Bikini Atoll 'for an [End Page 382] indefinite period of time.' This document was signed by two American representatives … [but] significantly, no members of the Bikini Council were asked to sign the agreement" (45–46). Another pattern that surfaces from the archival evidence is the US Government's repeated resettlement of Marshallese on atolls or islands that were not previously occupied and that were unfit for full-time human habitation such as Rongerik, Ujelang, Ejit, Kili, and Mejatto. Smith-Norris's meticulous archival research also substantiates previously documented patterns of human experimentation involving Marshallese exposed to radioactive fallout, resettled on contaminated lands, or used as control populations in biomedical research; none of these activities were for the "benefit" of the Marshallese. After reviewing documents pertaining to biomedical experimentation on Rongelap, the inhabited atoll closest to the ground-zero location of Bikini Atoll, the author concludes: "Clearly, the [Atomic Energy Commission's] research interests prevailed over concerns for the health of the Rongelapese" (89). While the standard format for most book reviews is to discuss both the strengths and critiques of a publication, this review draws inspiration from Shawn Wilson's call (in Research Is Ceremony: Indigenous Research Methods [2008]) to build relationships, in this case between disciplines and researchers. As Wilson pointed out: "Criticizing or judging would imply that I know more about someone else's work and the relationships that went into it than they do themselves. I have no doubt that as others did their research, they used the methods and paradigms that seemed most suited to the job as they saw it" (2008, 43). With Wilson's...

Measurement of background gamma radiation in the northern Marshall Islands

We report measurements of background gamma radiation levels on six islands in the northern Marshall Islands (Enewetak, Medren, and Runit onEnewetak Atoll; Bikini and Nam on Bikini Atoll; and Rongelap on Rongelap Atoll). Measurable excess radiation could be expected from the decay of (137)Cs produced by the US nuclear testing program there from 1946 to 1958. These recordings are of relevance to safety of human habitation and resettlement. We find low levels of gamma radiation for the settled island of Enewetak [mean = 7.6 millirem/year (mrem/y) = 0.076 millisievert/year (mSv/y)], larger levels of gamma radiation for the island of Rongelap (mean = 19.8 mrem/y = 0.198 mSv/y), and relatively high gamma radiation on the island of Bikini (mean = 184 mrem/y = 1.84 mSv/y). Distributions of gamma radiation levels are provided, and hot spots are discussed. We provide interpolated maps for four islands (Enewetak, Medren, Bikini, and Rongelap), and make comparisons to control measurements performed on the island of Majuro in the southern Marshall Islands, measurements made in Central Park in New York City, and the standard agreed upon by the United States and the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) governments (100 mrem/y = 1 mSv/y). External gamma radiation levels on Bikini Island significantly exceed this standard (P = <<0.01), and external gamma radiation levels on the other islands are below the standard. To determine conclusively whether these islands are safe for habitation, radiation exposure through additional pathways such as food ingestion must be considered.

Chromosome aberrations in Japanese fishermen exposed to fallout radiation 420-1200km distant from the nuclear explosion test site at Bikini Atoll: report 60years after the incident.

During the period from March to May, 1954, the USA conducted six nuclear weapon tests at the "Bravo" detonation sites at the Bikini and Enewetak Atolls, Marshall Islands. At that time, the crew of tuna fishing boats and cargo ships that were operating approximately 150-1200km away from the test sites were exposed to radioactive fallout. The crew of the fishing boats and those on cargo ships except the "5th Fukuryu-maru" did not undergo any health examinations at the time of the incident. In the present study, chromosome aberrations in peripheral blood lymphocytes were examined in detail by the G-banding method in 17 crew members from 8 fishing boats and 2 from one cargo ship, 60years after the tests. None of the subjects examined had suffered from cancer. The percentages of both stable-type aberrations such as translocation, inversion and deletion, and unstable-type aberrations such as dicentric and centric ring in the study group were significantly higher (1.4- and 2.3-fold, respectively) than those in nine age-matched controls. In the exposed and control groups, the percentages of stable-type aberrations were 3.35% and 2.45%, respectively, and the numbers of dicentric and centric ring chromosomes per 100 cells were 0.35 and 0.15, respectively. Small clones were observed in three members of the exposed group. These results suggest that the crews were exposed to slightly higher levels of fallout than had hitherto been assumed.

After Crossroads: The Fate of the Atomic Bomb Target Fleet

The atomic tests at Bikini Atoll left a submerged archaeological legacy in the form of sixty-one shipwrecks at or near Bikini, Kwajalein, the California coast, and in two other lesser cases off Oahu and the coast of Washington State. Together they comprise a unique maritime cultural landscape of the Cold War, and the naval aspects of that conflict.