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Yucca Flat is a closed desert drainage basin, one of four major nuclear test regions within the Nevada Test Site (NTS), and is divided into nine test sections: Areas 1 through 4 and 6 through 10. Yucca Flat is located at the eastern edge of NTS, about ten miles (16 km) north of Frenchman Flat, and from Las Vegas, Nevada.〔 Yucca Flat was the site for 739 nuclear tests – nearly four of every five tests carried out at the NTS.〔(US Department of Energy. Nevada Operations Office. ''United States Nuclear Tests: July 1945 through September 1992'' (December 2000) )〕 Yucca Flat has been called "the most irradiated, nuclear-blasted spot on the face of the earth".〔Gerald H. Clarfield and William M. Wiecek (1984). ''Nuclear America: Military and Civilian Nuclear Power in the United States 1940–1980'', Harper & Row, New York, p. 202.〕 In March 2009, ''TIME'' identified the 1970 Yucca Flat Baneberry Test, where 86 workers were exposed to radiation, as one of the world's worst nuclear disasters.〔(The Worst Nuclear Disasters )〕 ==Geology== The open, sandy geology of Yucca Flat in the Tonopah Basin made for straightforward visual documentation of atmospheric nuclear tests. When testing went underground, deep layers of sedimentary soil from the erosion of the surrounding mountains allowed for relatively easy drilling of test holes.〔(Online Nevada. Alan Moore. ''Yucca Flat'' (Last Updated: 2007-04-19 09:22:27) )〕 Hundreds of subsidence craters dot the desert floor. A crater could develop when an underground nuclear explosion vaporized surrounding bedrock and sediment. The vapor cooled to liquid lava and pooled at the bottom of the cavity created by the explosion. Cracked rock and sediment layers above the explosion often settled into the cavity to form a crater. At the south end of Yucca Flat is Yucca Lake, also called Yucca Dry Lake. The dry, alkaline lake bed holds a restricted runway (Yucca Airstrip) which was built by the Army Corps of Engineers before nuclear testing began in the area. To the west of the dry lake bed is News Nob, a rocky outcropping from which journalists and VIPs were able to watch atmospheric nuclear tests at Yucca Flat.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Yucca Flat」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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