Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
|
|
|
Topic Author's Original Post - Nov 22, 2008 - 01:27pm PT
|
Controversial, yes. Which is reason enough to post this up here, not to mention that it's pertinent. Whether and when will the fine -- but fractured -- granite of our favorite mountain range next rain down upon our heads?
The Atomic Broom Theory
Was the High Sierra preternaturally cleaned of loose rock by weapons testing in Nevada? The evidence keeps tumbling down, says veteran climber Doug Robinson
By Doug Robinson
After some four decades of guiding the Palisades, widely regarded as the most impressive alpine region of the High Sierra, the crash of rockfall began scaring me off certain climbs, such as the classic Moon Goddess on Temple Crag. At first, I figured the change was within me, a creeping old-fart-ism, not an actual change in the rock.
But then I ran into an odd story that sparked me to propose the theory of the Atomic Broom. Daniel Wenger is another graying climber, who took up this ascending passion after 60. We often swap belays at Pacific Edge, our local gym in Santa Cruz. One day Daniel told me about backpacking into the Palisades in 1952. He was awakened before dawn by a sickly yellow flash in the eastern sky, followed by a huge rocking blast, and then rockfall from every peak in the cirque.
Decades of living in the Palisades all summer have gotten me used to bomb blasts. The deep rumble of target practice rolls in from the Nevada Test Site, slightly over a hundred air miles away. Those bombs, even conventional weapons, would pulse our eardrums. But Daniel’s story sounded a whole lot bigger.
Then it hit me: Atomic Bomb. That’s right when a lot of them were blown off, an even hundred above ground, in the desert north of Las Vegas. The Cold War.
H-bombs, even. Scores of atomic tests, and they went on for years. As a kid I saw the photos in Life magazine. The Army had even lined up troops a few miles away, to see if they’d be able to fight afterward. And then, decades later, when the radiation damage began showing up with cancer clusters downwind in Utah, the Army had conveniently “lost” their lists of which guys were in those tests.
But back to the rockfall they triggered. Booming down off every peak in the cirque.
We started showing up in the Palisades not that long afterward, in the early ‘60s. First Don Jensen, who made the first ascent of the Moon Goddess with clients in 1969, and then my crew from Yosemite. Unconsciously, we calibrated our sense of the relative solidness of the rock. But quite unknown to us the whole east-facing rampart of the highest Sierra had been scoured by the Atomic Broom.
Think about it. Those were the biggest explosions mankind – compulsively playing with fire – has ever ignited. Mega-tonnage of blast power rolled out massive shockwaves through the atmosphere. Those pulses cleared the Inyo Mountains and the Funeral Range above Death Valley and slammed into the eastern escarpment of the High Sierra. It’s a direct hit on the highest walls up under the crest, where the shock wave scoured the East Face of Whitney and the magnificent ribs and buttresses of Mt. Russell. They were about 100 miles from Ground Zero, with the Palisades barely a few miles further.
That’s where young Daniel awoke to the result: rockfall pouring off of every peak, rattling the Sierra dawn.
The atomic blasts went on for years, nearly a thousand of them in all, if you count the biggest explosions that were detonated underground. Often enough they too breached the surface. The highest Sierra was being relentlessly swept by the Atomic Broom.
We had waltzed into a landscape artificially swept clean of loose rock. Who knew?
Then, gradually over the five decades following, each year’s frost-wedging has teetered more blocks. Things are returning now to a normal we have never known. Normal for the peaks, but it feels loose to us.
It just happened that all those first ascents, our little golden age of technical walls and airy aretes in the High Sierra from the late ‘60s through the early ‘70s, were done in a period of unusual solidness, a historical anomaly. We were innocent beneficiaries of the Atomic Age.
from Adventure Sports Journal, Sept-Oct '08 www.adventuresportsjournal.com/html/Articles/45/alpinism.htm
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Nov 22, 2008 - 01:32pm PT
|
cool idea Doug... let me ponder it...
|
|
wildone
climber
GHOST TOWN
|
|
|
Nov 22, 2008 - 01:38pm PT
|
Sounds absolutely feasible to me. Hell, I've been blown away when a military jet flies by me a few hundred feet off the deck (illegally) in the Yosemite backcountry, and just from the soundwaves rolling off of it, the rocks come tumbling down. I'm sure that a physical shockwave from air displacement would move some rocks.
|
|
Mike Bolte
Trad climber
Planet Earth
|
|
|
Nov 22, 2008 - 01:38pm PT
|
This is an interesting notion Doug. You can get some pretty good numbers on the tests these days (I'm wondering about your number of 1000 tests--that has got to be too high). Might be able to compare the energy density to sonic booms from aircraft or even thunder to get an idea of how unusual the atomic testing acoustic waves were.
I guess there could also be some ground movement, but it is hard to believe it could compare with earthquakes.
|
|
Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 22, 2008 - 02:19pm PT
|
Yeah, the number of tests was checked several places, including the DOE. Total tests # varies slightly depending on the source, but above ground number seems pretty agreed on at an even hundred.
The magnitude of the shockwave a hundred miles away is the interesting question. I cribbed some old DOE footage (it's public domain) to put into a movie about the Nevada desert, and even a few miles from ground zero the force is nothing but awesome.
Having my eardrums boxed quite regularly from merely conventional weapons in Nevada was a weekly if not daily experience of living in the Palisades. Thousand pound bombs maybe? I have no idea.
So when Daniel said the A-Bomb triggered "rockfall from every peak in the cirque," it got my attention.
|
|
Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
|
|
|
Nov 22, 2008 - 02:31pm PT
|
Hi Dougie,
Well this is a thrilling idea. But the facts aren't quite right. Those explosions/tests in Nevada were actually mostly pretty small tonnage tests, smaller than ones at some of the other sites and those much-admired two that fell on Japan. And some of them were underground.
http://www.radiochemistry.org/history/nuke_tests/index.shtml.
And there were not thousands of these tests at the Nevada Test Site. Apparently there were 205. I think we also have to put a sharper point to your idea, that we are talking about geological shockwaves and not atmospheric blast waves. And it is more like 150 miles from the site I think isn't it.
But I like your "Nuclear Escoba de Dios" concept; good sci fi and eerie! The website above has some interesting and gruesome detail about the statistical epidemiology for each of these blasts.
I am sure Ed H will have something to say soon. Although he "is only a lowly particle physicist" and I do quote him here.
best ph.
|
|
Mighty Hiker
Social climber
Vancouver, B.C.
|
|
|
Nov 22, 2008 - 02:45pm PT
|
I'm fairly sure that the US didn't test any thermonuclear weapons (hydrogen bombs) in the continental US. Certainly none above ground. They were detonated over various atolls in the Pacific, which for the most part obliterated said atolls.
The bombs set off in Nevada, and a few other places (e.g. Amchitka) were all atomic bombs, and relatively low yield. 1% - 10% of the explosive force of an H-bomb. Above-ground tests were banned after the Nuclear Test Ban treaty (1962?), although even before then some were done underground. Even the dimbulbs in the government had by then figured out that the effects of an underground test were just as easily measured, and that it was less destructive of property and the atmosphere.
Whether an above-ground or a below-ground explosion has greater effect on the surrounding environment, e.g. earth tremors etc, is beyond me. But I bet the government knows - certain that they measured the near and distant effects. There must also be records of all the tests - where, when, yield, below or above ground. Gradually fewer as time went on, but not ended until the 1990s.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Nov 22, 2008 - 03:07pm PT
|
if you look around you can find relevant information... for instance on Paul Richard's site in this history of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) the conversion from Yield, Y to magnitude, m:
m = 3.92 + 0.81 log Y
where Y is in kilotons.
The Threshold Test Ban Treaty (TTBT) was signed in 1974 and limited test yields to 150 kilotons. So after that date the maximum magnitude would be:
m = 3.92 + 0.81* 2.81 = 5.7
Now we need the geologists to tell us what this means in terms of moving the Sierra...
|
|
Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 22, 2008 - 03:42pm PT
|
Some of the biggest below-ground tests didn't stay there. Google "Sedan Crater" for a peek at breaching the surface. I think that was one of the biggest underground tests, and it broke through the surface.
|
|
Ed Hartouni
Trad climber
Livermore, CA
|
|
|
Nov 22, 2008 - 03:46pm PT
|
Sedan was a test of the use of nuclear ordinance for excavation, it was designed to excavate, it was a part of the "peaceful uses" program.
|
|
Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
|
|
|
Nov 22, 2008 - 03:56pm PT
|
Thanks Ed.
|
|
Chaz
Trad climber
So. Cal.
|
|
|
Nov 22, 2008 - 04:12pm PT
|
A small earthquake, like the ones we get all the time in California, packs a hell of a lot more energy than all the a-bomb blasts put together.
|
|
Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 22, 2008 - 04:23pm PT
|
Thanks for the reference, Ed.
Since I was mainly interested in the atmospheric shockwave and Sedan was one of the biggest tests, it caught my attention:
A circular area of the desert floor five miles across was obscured by fast-expanding dust clouds moving out horizontally from the base surge, akin to pyroclastic surge.
That article calls it "70% fusion." Doesn't that make it what a layman like me would call an H-Bomb?
Klaus-- Give it a rest. I have other interests besides Half Dome. Do you?
|
|
Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
|
|
|
Topic Author's Reply - Nov 22, 2008 - 04:49pm PT
|
Chaz,
You're probably right that even a small quake "packs a hell of a lot more energy," and I've seen a 6.2 quake centered right under the Wheeler Crest two miles from my house in Round Valley roll a lot of rocks off that hillside in May 1980.
I'm just trying to account for my friend's wild experience of rockfall from every peak in the Palisades from an aboveground test, and multiplying it by a hundred. Plus the big underground rockers like Sedan that ended up in the atmosphere big time.
I don't know how to compare the rockfall effects of quakes and air shockwaves. It's an excellent question, and I'd be happy to share a beer with anyone who's got ideas.
On the Valley rockfall thread, someone posted up John Muir's eyewitness of the 1872 earthquake in the Valley. Pretty impressive. (The Yosemite archivist, BTW, couldn't find anything for me about the location of the "Eagle Rock" he mentions toppling. A third Cathedral Spire?) That quake was centered in Lone Pine, down on the Eastside. A long way from the Valley. Sources count it as possibly California's largest quake in the historical record. About 8.3. Killed a third of the folks in Lone Pine that night (adobe houses). The fault scarp on the north end of town (ironically right next to their mass grave) is 20' vertically. Implying that Mt. Whitney gained 20 feet of height in a few seconds that night. Now that would have shaken a few rocks loose up and down the crest.
Somewhere I saw reference to a geologist who went around checking out mega-boulders that had toppled, as a way of inferring the shaking level of prehistoric quakes. Something to think about next time you're leading Headstone Rock. Or bouldering in the Buttermilk...
|
|
midarockjock
climber
USA
|
|
|
Nov 22, 2008 - 05:05pm PT
|
Once at Sally Keyes lake while fishing I noticed all the rings
and fish jumping in the lake stop about 15-20 seconds prior to
not being able to walk without being thrown off balance. They
knew before we did.
Estimate 6.8 however when we returned from the mountains there
was no seismic reports.
B-52 Tribute - 50 years of Air Power (With Rock and Roll)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZMh-_CmoGE&NR=1
Hardening? How many were drones?
|
|
paul roehl
Boulder climber
california
|
|
|
Nov 22, 2008 - 05:46pm PT
|
One thing that has always struck me in observing old photographs of the Valley, many dating back to the 19th century, is what appears to be a relatively recent rather dramatic increase in the amount of vegetation growing both in the talus slopes and on the rock walls as well. There also seems to be an increase in the amount of lichen growth during the last century. Walls in the valley seem much more grown over with lichen than they did in the last century. No doubt the increase in vegetation on the Valley floor has to do with fire suppression, but that doesn't seem likely on the walls themselves. Perhaps fluctuations in weather patterns leading to periods of vigorous plant and lichen growth may play some role in periods of increased rockfall.
|
|
nick d
Trad climber
nm
|
|
|
Nov 22, 2008 - 07:13pm PT
|
In 1967 there was an underground test in Northern New Mexico near my hometown called Project Gasbuggy. It was intended to fracture the ground to increase gas and oil yields. That didn't work out.
I was 9 and my father took me out as close as they would allow us to approach, about 20 miles from the test (near Dulce). We could feel the ground shake pretty good at that distance. I didn't notice any rockfalls in the cliffs and canyons where I played near my home at a distance of roughly 70 miles from the test.
A similar test was conducted near Rifle, Colorado.
Both of those tests wound up breaching the surface and vented significant amounts of radioactive steam. Insignificant, I'm sure compared to the amount of fallout generated by the huge numbers of tests in Nevada.
I recently found out that Kirtland Air Force base just south of here (Albuquerque) has a field that was purposefully contaminated with radioactive elements so they could march soldiers through it to test the effects on them. Good thing the wind only blows from South to North 50% of the time here.
Just something to consider the next time you are in a big dust storm out West. Who says the cold war is over?
|
|
HighDesertDJ
Trad climber
Arid-zona
|
|
|
Nov 22, 2008 - 09:20pm PT
|
There was a thing on NPR last week about how all the trees alive during those tests have an enormous extra amount of Carbon-16 in them. They did more studies and found that PEOPLE alive then also have more Carbon-16. Crazy.
|
|
Lynne Leichtfuss
Social climber
valley center, ca
|
|
|
Nov 22, 2008 - 09:44pm PT
|
Standing back, considering the topic and absorbing all the comments.....once again makes me appreciate ST and the tribe. Where else can one go to hear and gain the insights and perspectives found here. Not my field of expertise but sure have learned alot. Cheers guys
Edit: "stands to be corrected and clarified". Why I rarely post on scientific threads ..who wants to be clarified like butter etc....a somewhat painful process...best just to listen and observe. Smiles and enjoy your Thanksgiving.
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!