Gnome Nuclear Test Site, New Mexico

The Project Gnome Site is the location of a 1961 underground nuclear test conducted by the Atomic Energy Commission, near Loving, New Mexico. This was the first test in the Plowshare Program, a program to develop peaceful uses for nuclear weapons. The Lawrence Radiation Lab (which later became Lawrence Livermore National Lab) designed this test, which was to have many physical experiments associated with it, including the collection of isotopes, and to study the possibility of using nuclear explosions to generate electricity. The test, one of two large-scale underground nuclear tests in New Mexico, was conducted 1,200 feet below the surface in a salt deposit. When detonated, the device, with an explosive yield equivalent to 3,100 tons of TNT, created a cavity 164 feet long and 72 feet high. Workers drilled a wide shaft and entered the chamber just a few months after the blast. The surface of the test site is now used to graze cattle. There is a monument at the site.