The 1962 “Sedan” plowshares shot displaced 12 million tons of earth and created a crater 320 feet (98 m) deep and 1,280 feet (390 m) wide

“Project Plowshare was the overall United States program for the development of techniques to use nuclear explosives for peaceful construction purposes. The program was organized in June 1957 as part of the worldwide Atoms for Peace efforts. As part of the program, 31 nuclear warheads were detonated in 27 separate tests. A similar program was carried out in the Soviet Union under the name Nuclear Explosions for the National Economy. Successful demonstrations of non-combat uses for nuclear explosives include rock blasting, stimulation of tight gas, chemical element manufacture, unlocking some of the mysteries of the R-process of stellar nucleosynthesis and probing the composition of the Earth’s deep crust, creating reflection seismologyvibroseis data which has helped geologists and follow-on…