Although Crossroads was a military program, the mobilization of
scientific interests was in many ways of historic proportions. For
months before the explosions, oceanographers studied the waters and the
structure of the mid-Pacific basin and meteorologists the winds and
upper airs. Geologists, zoologists, botanists, and other specialists
examined the atoll in detail. Bikini became, as it remains to this day,
one of the most thoroughly familiar ocean structures in the world.
There was awareness, even then, of the significance of radioactivity as
an element of nuclear effect. The task force made elaborate preparations
to assure the safety of personnel and sent to the atoll thousands of
radiation-detection instruments. Plans were made to observe the effects
of radioactivity on test animals placed on ships of the target fleet.