Operation Totem at Maralinga was held in September 1956, with the Operation Buffalo series. Operation Totem Operation Totem was a pair of British atmospheric nuclear tests which took place at Emu Field in South Australia on 15 October 1953. They followed the Operation Hurricane test of the first British atomic bomb, which had taken place at the Montebello Islands a year previously. The main purpose of the trial was to determine the acceptable limit on the amount of plutonium-240 which could be present in a bomb. In addition to the two main tests, there was a series of five subcritical tests. These
Agathe (atomic test) "Vive La Bombe!". The French Defence Minister Pierre Messmer and other officials and civilians were present in the command post and were contaminated too (around >200 mSv). The millisievert (mSv) is commonly used to measure the effective dose in diagnostic medical procedures. See radiation poisoning for a more complete analysis of effects of various dosage levels. Data provided by the French Defense Ministry on January 2007. Agathe (atomic test) Agathe (aka Agate) was the name of the first French nuclear underground test. It was an atomic bomb detonated in the Hoggar mount (near In Ekker) of the then French Sahara