This Day in History: 1969-09-10

Fracking by nuke — A 43 kiloton nuclear bomb is detonated underground in Garfield County, Colorado by the Atomic Energy Commission under Project Rulison, part of Project Plowshare/Peaceful Atom.   The idea was to free natural gas from sandstone formations.  Although successful, the gas turned out to be too radioactive to use.  High Country covered the event in “He Felt the Earth Move.”