[ RadSafe ] Bikini Atoll's Nuked Coral Reef Bounces Back to Life

[franz.schoenhofer at chello.at]

---- "Perle schrieb:
> Bikini Atoll's Nuked Coral Reef Bounces Back to Life
>
> (FNS) Apr 20 - Half a century after the atomic blasts that devastated
> Bikini Atoll, vast expanses of corals in the area seem to be flourishing
> once again, much to the surprise of scientists.
> American government scientists detonated a hydrogen bomb on the tiny
> island (a part of the Marshall Islands in the western Pacific) on March
> 1, 1954, .................
> Code-named Castle Bravo, the hydrogen bomb was the most powerful nuclear
> weapon ever exploded at the time at 15 megatons,......

I do not know the exact meaning of the complicated wording used in the last sentence: Should it mean "ever exploded" or "exploded up to that day"? I do not expect that it should mean that several nuclear weapons were exploded at the same time.

Anyway the most powerful explosion of a nuclear weapon was that of a Russian hydrogen bomb at Novaja Zemla in the early sixties with the equivalent of about 60 Mt TNT. I remember that Chrushtshow mentioned that the explosion was not intended in this intensity, but the scientists would not be punished because they put in a little more "gun powder". 

Best regards,

Franz