#cactus dome

[thegodofhellfire]

[nuclearvault]

Between 1946 and 1962, the United States military conducted 105 atmospheric nuclear weapons tests over the Pacific Proving Grounds - a euphemism for the Marshall Islands and several other nearby South Pacific atolls.

During the late 1970s, in an effort to clean up the radioactive debris left in the wake of those explosions, the United States government dug up 111,000 cubic yards of soil from the Bikini and Rongelap atolls, depositing it on Runit Island. Its final resting place would be in a 350-foot wide crater created two decades earlier by Cactus, an 18-kiloton thermonuclear weapon, as part of Operation Hardtack I.

Covering up the crater cost $250,000,000 and took three years to complete. The result was a massive 100,000 square foot concrete dome an inch and a half thick.

[visualcitizen]

Bikini Lines IndieGoGo Pitch: How To Make The World's Largest Painting  by christian forestell A video on an art project that would take a dome (Cactus Dome) on the otherwise desolate Runit Island into the largest painting that would be viewable on Google Earth.

[concreteporn-blog]

The Cactus Dome!

What: The Cactus Dome

Who: USA Govt.

Where: Runit Island, Enewetak Atoll. (USA)

When: Testing 1958, Concrete Dome 1977-1980

Info:

In 1958, the United States tested the 18-kiloton "Cactus" nuclear device on Runit Island in the North Pacific Ocean. 20 years later, Cactus' 350-foot-wide crater was filled with radioactive soil and covered with a 100,000-square-foot concrete dome. The $239 million Cactus Dome, which is on Runit in the Enewetak Atoll, holds 111,000 cubic yards of radioactive soil and detritus from nuclear testing on the Bikini and Rongelap atolls. The dome was constructed between 1977 and 1980 and is made of 1.5-foot-thick concrete. You can visit, but... standing on top of a radioactive landfill doesn’t really sound like much fun.

[concreteporn-blog]

The Cactus Dome.

[concreteporn-blog]

Map of Enewetak Atoll, located in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean.

[awpresents-blog]

Beneath this concrete dome on Runit Island (part of Enewetak Atoll), built between 1977 and 1980 at a cost of about $239 million, lie 111,000 cubic yards (84,927 cubic meters) or radioactive soil and debris from Bikini and Rongelap atolls. The dome covers the 30-foot (9 meter) deep, 350-foot (107 meter) wide crated created by the May 5, 1958, Cactus test. Note the people atop the dome.

[posthorn]

The Cactus Dome.

From the Brookings Institution:

"Beneath this concrete dome on Runit Island (part of Enewetak Atoll), built between 1977 and 1980 at a cost of about $239 million, lie 111,000 cubic yards (84,927 cubic meters) or radioactive soil and debris from Bikini and Rongelap atolls. The dome covers the 30-foot (9 meter) deep, 350-foot (107 meter) wide crated created by the May 5, 1958, Cactus test. Note the people atop the dome."