Chagan (nuclear test)
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Chagan was a Soviet nuclear test during the Soviet atomic bomb project and was the most powerful test in the Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy series. It was an underground test, fired on January 15, 1965. The yield was the equivalent of 140 kilotons of TNT. While the test did not violate the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty (it was an underground test), the United States nonetheless complained to the Soviets.
The photo has been mistakenly credited as the Soviet test Joe 1 (Richard Rhodes's 1995 Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb and David Holloway's 1994 Stalin and the Bomb).[citation needed]
The site was a dry bed of the Chagan River at the edge of the Semipalatinsk Test Site, and was chosen such that the lip of the crater would dam the river during its high spring flow. The resultant crater has a diameter of 408 meters (1,338 ft) and is 100 meters (328 ft) deep.
[edit] Lake Chagan
Lake Chagan or Lake Balapan, Kazakhstan, is a lake created by the Chagan nuclear test. It is roughly 10,000 dam³ (8,100 acre·ft).
As of 2008, the area is still radioactive, and has been called the "Atomic Lake". As at the Trinity site of the first United States nuclear weapon test in Alamogordo, New Mexico, the exposed rock was melted into a glassy substance.
[edit] See also
- Sedan (nuclear test) -- An American cratering detonation
[edit] External links and references
Coordinates: 49°56′07″N 79°00′32″E / 49.935278°N 79.008889°E
