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Radiation Plume From Port Chicago Found?
By ikluft, Section News Posted on Fri Jul 16, 2004 at 10:36:33 AM PST
A year and a half ago when the Port Chicago debate erupted on SciScoop and Slashdot, the question came up, "Where's the radiation?" Trying to settle the urban legend one way or the other before the 60th anniversary of the accident (July 17), a friend and I drove there with an electronic geiger counter mounted outside my truck and my Linux Laptop inside, logging the data. What we found was startling. There is a 2-mile wide swath of higher-than-background (13-17 uR/hr measured from the road) radiation directly across the bay from Port Chicago on Grizzly Island. It gets less noticeable further inland, even with sensitive instruments. It's a wildlife area, so maybe that's why no one noticed. But the unexplained radiation is definitely there. And the shape is facing Port Chicago from across the bay. I posted my findings including instructions and source code so you can duplicate my experiment. Time to get the media to exercise their FOIA expertise and pester members of Congress for info.

Radiation Plume From Port Chicago Found? | 23 comments (21 topical, 0 hidden)

Wow - VERY Interesting (5.00 / 1) (#2)
by rickyjames on Fri Jul 16, 2004 at 07:27:26 AM PST

There is another atomic connection to Port Chicago bedides the 1944 explosion and the question on whether or not it was a uranium hydride bomb. In 1946, a huge fleet of U.S. Navy ships were set up for nearby atomic tests known as Operation Crossroads. The fallout far exceeded what they were expecting and the ships were ultimately junked in San Francisco / Port Chicago.

So, yeah, there's definitely atomic fallout in the Port Chicago area. The question is, did the atomic explosion that created this fallout happen at Bikini Atoll in 1946 as part of Operation Crossroads - or locally in 1944 during a loading accident for a Mark II uranium hydride bomb? Or both?

Enjoy reading this SciScoop story? Here's a thousand more.

check every possibility by ikluft, 07/16/2004 03:36:59 PM PST (none / 0)
Operation Crossroads ships by deckard, 07/19/2004 07:34:50 PM PST (none / 0)

Ships by Anonymous, 07/20/2004 12:14:02 PM PST (none / 0)

Operation Crossroads Ships by deckard, 07/20/2004 12:40:05 PM PST (none / 0)

Operation Crossroads Ships by Anonymous, 07/21/2004 10:44:39 AM PST (none / 0)

OK, Let's Cut To The Chase (3.00 / 1) (#4)
by rickyjames on Fri Jul 16, 2004 at 03:24:41 PM PST

I've been poking around on the web and here's what I've found. Here's a pretty good map and overview of the Port Chicago area. Turns out you CAN go right to the actual Port Chicago blast site by appointment. Once you're there, you want to look for and carry out just one single sample of trinitite, the fused sand that's formed at a ground zero. According to the popup window that comes up at that last link about "fake trinitite", the real stuff always has a gamma-ray spike at around 600 keV. You see that, you've got Proof. Since you probably aren't going to be able to lug a gamma ray spectrometer on site, your RM-80 will have to do. It appears quite capable of detecting Cs-137 radiation from a ground zero blast.

Hey, let us know what the Park Service says when you try to set up your trip, and what your RM-80 says when you get there. And take plenty of photos! Good luck!

Enjoy reading this SciScoop story? Here's a thousand more.

Solve The Mystery Today by rickyjames, 07/16/2004 11:24:50 PM PST (none / 0)

One Trip To Port Chicago With A RM-80 Sould Do It by rickyjames, 07/17/2004 04:40:57 AM PST (none / 0)

Yeah, but... by ikluft, 07/17/2004 08:22:58 AM PST (none / 0)

Another Project For Another Day by rickyjames, 07/18/2004 11:46:54 AM PST (none / 0)

Radiation by Anonymous, 07/20/2004 12:20:40 PM PST (none / 0)

Trinitie by Anonymous, 07/20/2004 11:06:53 AM PST (none / 0)
Trinity by Anonymous, 07/20/2004 12:12:30 PM PST (none / 0)

A couple things... (3.00 / 1) (#8)
by jxliv7 on Sat Jul 17, 2004 at 08:22:20 AM PST

.
...I am curious about:

.....What direction was the prevailing wind the day (and time) of the explosion?

.....Is there debris still in the water -- perhaps part of the hull or cargo?

.....Can somebody take some pictures of the Port Chicago site, Grizzly Island, and the surrounding area to post? (well, unless the background radiation will ruin the film <smirk>)

.....Does the "friendly" Park Service Ranger carry a dosimeter?

This is a very interesting and thought provoking first person article, well worthy of SciScoop's front page.

jon

jon

Crater by Anonymous, 07/20/2004 12:17:26 PM PST (none / 0)

Oops, bad timing (none / 0) (#10)
by SEWilco on Sun Jul 18, 2004 at 12:02:16 AM PST

July 17 might have been a bad day for radiation readings. The Sun has been blasting X-rays this week. Check if your radiation detector is sensitive to that ... and just what readings has it been giving you all week?

Solar radiation by barakn, 07/18/2004 12:28:24 PM PST (5.00 / 1)

images updated (none / 0) (#21)
by ikluft on Fri Jul 23, 2004 at 08:47:59 AM PST

The background radiation observations page has been updated. I fixed the image-generation software so that the colors are displayed correctly. And it uses a more intuitive choice of colors now. (And an improvement that helps me too - instead of taking an hour averaging too many data points, the new algorithm takes only a few seconds to run.)

Also, an update on the July 11 drive. There was a 14 uR/hr data point on Shiloh Rd which I missed. (It's easy to miss one point when you're sifting through hours of data taken at 1-second intervals.) The image has been updated to point out where it was.

I've been back to Grizzly Island two more times to collect more data. That should be posted either over the weekend or early next week. Highlights of what I learned...

If you drive too fast, you won't see the small "warm spots" as more area around it gets included in the counts per minute.
When driving slower, one reading on Grizzly Island went up to 20 uR/hr, which is now the highest reading I've recorded in that area.

I was actually going to ask you about this by mtigges, 07/23/2004 09:49:42 AM PST (none / 0)

It records data whether I'm moving or stopped by ikluft, 07/23/2004 10:26:16 AM PST (none / 0)

Radiation Plume From Port Chicago Found? | 23 comments (21 topical, 0 hidden)

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