Operation Sandstone

	Email		Print
	Bookmark		Link

Operation Sandstone

Operation Sandstone was the third American

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
series of nuclear weapon

Nuclear weapon

A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either nuclear fission or a combination of fission and nuclear fusion....
tests. It was conducted in 1948 at Enewetak Atoll. These tests followed Crossroads

Operation Crossroads

Operation Crossroads was a series of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States and nuclear weapons at Bikini Atoll in the summer of 1946....
and preceded Ranger

Operation Ranger

Operation Ranger was the fourth American nuclear weapon test series. It was conducted in 1951 and was the first series to be carried out at the Nevada Test Site....
. As was the custom, each explosion was given a nickname.

The tests were authorized on June 27 1947 and Enewetak Atoll was chosen as the test site on October 11.

Discussion

Ask a question about 'Operation Sandstone'

Start a new discussion about 'Operation Sandstone'

Answer questions from other users

Full Discussion Forum

Encyclopedia

Operation Sandstone was the third American

United States

Nuclear weapon

Operation Crossroads

Operation Crossroads was a series of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States and nuclear weapons at Bikini Atoll in the summer of 1946....
and preceded Ranger

Operation Ranger

**Sandstone Test Blasts**
Test Name	Date	Location	Yield
X-Ray	14 April 1948	Enewetak Atoll	37 kilotons
Yoke	30 April 1948	Enewetak Atoll	49 kilotons
Zebra	14 May 1948	Enewetak Atoll	18 kilotons

The tests were authorized on June 27 1947 and Enewetak Atoll was chosen as the test site on October 11. The 140 inhabitants of the atoll were relocated to Ujelang Atoll

Ujelang Atoll

Ujelang Atoll is an atoll of 30 islands in the Pacific Ocean. The largest island is also called Ujelang. Eimnlapp, Kalo and Daisu are much smaller....
in December.

The tests were used to evaluate new atomic weapon designs that had been developed at Los Alamos

Los Alamos National Laboratory

Los Alamos National Laboratory is a United States Department of Energy United States Department of Energy National Labs, managed and operated by Los Alamos National Security, LLC , located in Los Alamos, New Mexico....
as part of the Manhattan Project

Manhattan Project

The Manhattan Project was the project to develop the first atomic weapon during World War II; involving the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada....
but had not previously been used. The bombs used oralloy, a form of enriched uranium

Uranium

Uranium is a silvery-gray metallic chemical element in the actinide series of the periodic table that has the chemical symbol U and atomic number 92....
, as a replacement for plutonium

Plutonium

Plutonium is a rare transuranic radioactive chemical element. It is an actinide metal of silvery-white appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, forming a dull coating when plutonium oxide....
, which had been used in all atomic weapons prior to this with the exception of the "Little Boy

Little Boy

Little Boy was the codename of the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, on August 6, 1945 by the B-29 Superfortress Enola Gay, piloted by Colonel Paul Tibbets in the 393d Bomb Squadron of the United States Army Air Forces....
" bomb dropped on Hiroshima

Hiroshima

The Japanese city of is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chugoku region of western Honshu, the largest of Japan's islands....
, which utilized uranium-235

Uranium-235

Uranium-235 is an Isotopes of uranium that differs from the element's other common isotope, uranium-238, by its ability to cause a rapidly expanding nuclear fission chain reaction, i.e., it is fissile....
. The X-Ray test used a 2:1 mix of oralloy and plutonium. The Yoke and Zebra tests used all oralloy.