#amchitka

Joni Mitchell & James Taylor, Pacific Coliseum, Vancouver, BC, Canada, October 16, 1970 © George Diack.

The W71 was lowered 6,150 feet (1,870 m) down a 90-inch-diameter (2.3 m) borehole into a man-made cavern 52 feet (16 m) in diameter. A 264-foot-long (80 m) instrumentation system monitored the detonation. The full yield test was conducted at 11:00am local time November 6, 1971 and resulted in a vertical ground motion of more than 15 feet (4.6 m) at a distance of 2,000 feet (610 m) from the borehole, equivalent to an earthquake of magnitude 7.0 on the Richter scale. A 1-mile-wide (1.6 km) and 40-foot-deep (12 m) crater formed two days later.

American troops and equipment landing on Amchitka Island (1942 – 45).

Joni Mitchell at the benefit concert that launched Greenpeace - Pacific Coliseum, Vancouver, B.C., October 16, 1970 © George Kropinski.

A great documentary on Environmental Activism for this Earth Day. It chronicles the beginnings of Greenpeace, to their fight to end whale hunting - which caught the attention of the world. It features the trip to the Amchitka Islands, which launched Greenpeace and of which Joni Mitchell performed a benefit concert.

50 years ago today Joni Mitchell performed at a benefit concert that would fund a trip to the Amchitka Islands to protest the government’s testing of a hydrogen bomb.

James Taylor “You Can Close Your Eyes” Greenpeace benefit concert, October 16, 1970.