![]() They noticed that the giant Tridacna clams were gone from the area they inhabited before. They combed the atoll’s beaches for rats, crabs, and birds. Years after the explosions, scientists continued studying the radiation effects on the atoll’s flora and fauna. While the physical devastation was easy to see, the long-lasting radioactive damage would take decades to observe. Coconut crab being monitored by geiger counter, Bikini Island, Augvia JSTOR The explosions took minutes to destroy them. As soon as the islands emerged and became habitable-around 3,500 years ago-humans began settling them. Built over millions of years by living coral organisms that grew around the basalt core, the islands comprised a complex ecosystem that took a very long time to form. Eventually, in March 1954 the US military dropped the world’s first hydrogen bomb from a plane, which decimated three of the Bikini islands, creating a crater that measured two kilometers wide and 80 meters deep. Exploding bombs chewed out huge craters in the coral reefs-craters more than a mile in diameter. More explosions followed the first ones in 1946. The name quickly made it into the fashion lexicon, despite the damage done to its namesake island chain. Palumbo collecting algae specimens from the bottom of Bikini Lagoon, summer 1964 via JSTORįour days after the initial test, Micheline Bernardini, a dancer from the Casino de Paris sported le bikini at the city’s public pool-a G-string with newspaper print. Back then it was grandiosely described as a “ terrifying pillar of water topped by an unfolding blossom of mist and radioactive debris.” About 5,400 experimental rats, goats, and pigs were brought along to study as part of the test program. On 1 July 1946, over 42,000 US military personnel and civilians on 242 naval ships, 156 planes and with 25,000 radiation recording devices watched the first Bikini Atoll nuclear test. They were initially relocated to the Rongerik Atoll, which they believed to be inhabited by evil spirits after much hardship they were relocated once again to the Kwajalein Atoll and later to the Kili Island. On March 7, 1946, the 167 Bikinians living on the atoll placed flowers on their ancestors’ graves, bade them farewell, and left their homeland for good. The atoll inhabitants were forced to move.Īs soon as the islands emerged and became habitable-around 3,500 years ago-humans began settling them. That changed in 1945, when the USA took over and designated the Marshall Islands for nuclear testing. Yet, up until the 1940s, the Bikinians remained relatively isolated. The first Christian missionaries arrived on the islands in 1857, the German traders in the 1860s, and the Japanese in 1914. The colonial history of the Bikini Atoll and the Marshall Islands is somewhat shorter than many other tropical nations. These photos and documents are now free to browse on JSTOR. Donaldson Collection of Northern Pacific Ocean Radiological Surveys. That tumultuous history is now preserved in haunting photos, diaries, papers and studies, assembled by the University of Washington into the Lauren L. Between 19, the United States military detonated several nuclear bombs in the area, wiping out plants and wildlife, and leaving behind a toxic wasteland. The Bikini Atoll-a series of limestone formations in the Pacific Ocean that comprise part of the Marshall Islands-is, or rather was, a tropical paradise.
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