The production and dissolution of nuclear explosive melt glasses at underground test sites in the pacific region

From 1975 to 1996 the French detonated 140 underground nuclear explosions beneath the atolls of Mururoa and Fangataufa in the South Pacific; from 1965 to 1971 the United States detonated three high yield nuclear tests beneath Amchitka Island in the Aleutian chain. Approximately 800 metric tons of basalt is melted per kiloton of nuclear yield; almost 107 metric tons of basalt were melted in these tests. Long-lived and toxic radionuclides are partitioned into the melt glass at the time of explosion and are released by dissolution with seawater under saturated conditions. A glass dissolution model predicts that nuclear melt glasses at these sites will dissolve in 106 to 107 years. (author)