METHODS AND SOURCES USED TO PREPARE THIS VOLUME

This report on Project TRINITY is based on historical and technical
documents associated with the detonation of the first nuclear device
on 16 July 1945. The Department of Defense compiled information for
this volume from documents that record the scientific activities
during Project TRINITY. These records, most of which were developed
by participants in TRINITY, are kept in several document repositories
throughout the United States.

In compiling information for this report, historians, health
physicists, radiation specialists, and information analysts canvassed
document repositories known to contain materials on atmospheric
nuclear weapons tests conducted in the southwestern United States.
These repositories included armed services libraries, Government
agency archives and libraries, Federal repositories, and libraries of
scientific and technical laboratories. Researchers examined
classified and unclassified documents containing information on the
participation of personnel from the MED, which supervised Project
TRINITY, and from the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory (LASL), which
developed the TRINITY device. After this initial effort, researchers
recorded relevant information concerning the activities of MED and
LASL personnel and catalogued the data sources. Many of the documents
pertaining specifically to MED and LASL participation were found in
the Defense Nuclear Agency Technical Library and the LASL Records
Center.

Information on the fallout pattern, meteorological conditions, and
nuclear cloud dimensions is taken from Volume 1 of the General