Project Gasbuggy was an underground nuclear detonation carried out by the United States Atomic Energy Commission on December 10, 1967 in rural northern New Mexico. It was part of Operation Plowshare, a program designed to find peaceful uses for nuclear explosions. Gasbuggy was carried out by the Lawrence Livermore Radiation Laboratory and the El Paso Natural Gas Company, with funding from the Atomic Energy Commission. Its purpose was to determine if nuclear explosions could be useful in fracturing rock formations for natural gas extraction.Project Gasbuggy
'' Popular Mechanics'', September 1967. The site, lying in the

Carson National Forest Carson National Forest is a national forest in northern New Mexico, United States. It encompasses 6,070 square kilometers (1.5 million acres) and is administered by the United States Forest Service. The Forest Service's "mixed use" policy allows ...

, is approximately southwest of Dulce, New Mexico and east of

Farmington Farmington may refer to: Places Canada *Farmington, British Columbia *Farmington, Nova Scotia (disambiguation) United States * Farmington, Arkansas *Farmington, California * Farmington, Connecticut *Farmington, Delaware * Farmington, Georgia ...

, and was chosen because natural gas deposits were known to be held in sandstone beneath

Leandro Canyon Leandro may refer to: * Leandro (given name), a male name, including a list of people with the name * '' Ero e Leandro'', a 1707 cantata by George Frideric Handel * San Leandro, California * San Leandro Creek See also *Leandra (disambiguation) L ...

.A Good Start for Gasbuggy
'' Time'', December 22, 1967. A device was placed at a depth of underground, then the well was backfilled before the device was detonated; a crowd had gathered to watch the detonation from atop a nearby butte. The detonation took place after a couple of delays, the last one caused by a breakdown of the explosive refrigeration system. The detonation produced a rubble chimney that was wide and high above the blast center.Gasbuggy Nuclear Test Site
. Center for Land Use Interpretation. Accessed April 11, 2011. After an initial surface cleanup effort the site sat idle for over a decade. A later surface cleanup effort primarily tackled leftover toxic materials. In 1978, a marker monument was installed at the Surface Ground Zero (SGZ) point that provided basic explanation of the historic test. Below the main plaque lies another which indicates that no drilling or digging is allowed without government permission. The site is publicly accessible via the Carson National Forest, F.S. 357 dirt road/ Indian J10 that leads into the Carson National Forest. Following the Project Gasbuggy test, two subsequent nuclear explosion fracturing experiments were conducted in western Colorado in an effort to refine the technique. They were Project Rulison in 1969 and

Project Rio Blanco Project Rio Blanco was an underground nuclear test that took place on May 17, 1973 in Rio Blanco County, Colorado, approximately 36 miles (58 km) northwest of Rifle. Three 33-kiloton nuclear devices were detonated nearly simultaneously in ...

in 1973. In both cases the gas radioactivity was still seen as too high and in the last case the triple-blast rubble chimney structures disappointed the design engineers. Soon after that test the ~ 15-year Project Plowshare program funding dried up. These early fracturing tests were later superseded by

hydraulic fracturing Fracking (also known as hydraulic fracturing, hydrofracturing, or hydrofracking) is a well stimulation technique involving the fracturing of bedrock formations by a pressurized liquid. The process involves the high-pressure injection of "frack ...

technologies.

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{{US nuclear tests Explosions in 1967 1967 in the United States American nuclear weapons testing American nuclear test sites Explosions in the United States Peaceful nuclear explosions History of Rio Arriba County, New Mexico Underground nuclear weapons testing 1967 in New Mexico Carson National Forest