Nevada Desert

Bomb fins poking up from beneath the northern Nevada desert have prompted the Navy to dispatch more than 150 personnel on foot to comb public lands near the Fallon Naval Air Station for unexploded bombs. Tons of potentially explosive ordnance, from 1,000-pound gravity bombs to explosive-filled 20-millimeter cannon shells, have been found, some just off U.S. Highway 50 and in recreation areas favored by off-road-vehicle riders.

The pilot zoomed low between the pink, craggy peaks of the Sheep Mountains, suddenly twisting his F-16 Falcon vertically into the desert sky before diving on the target, a railroad bridge. Capt. Kevin (Omar) Bradley plunged the plane toward the bridge and pushed his "pickle" button, simulating bombs away. Bradley, 30, pointed the Falcon's nose up, climbed radically and turned, eliciting groans from his reporter-passenger as the "Gs" increased to seven times the force of gravity.

A nuclear weapons test that had been delayed by fickle wind conditions rattled the Nevada desert Tuesday with an explosion more than 10 times the force of the Hiroshima atomic bomb. The underground blast registered magnitude 4.6 at the National Earthquake Information Center in Golden, Colo., according to spokesman John Minsch. Monitors atop high-rise hotels in Las Vegas, 100 miles from Ground Zero, registered the blast. But the readings were not as distinct as with some previous tests.

A winery in the heart of southern Nevada's sun-baked desert? It may not strike fear into the hearts of Napa Valley wine makers, but a group of local businessmen want to make their town the wine capital of Nevada. They want to plant a 60-acre vineyard and build a 6,500-square-foot winery with tasting rooms in the town, 63 miles west of Las Vegas. Group spokesman Jack Sanders said wine grapes produced in soil that now yields sagebrush, yucca and other desert species will meet California standards.

The Soviet Union on Sunday conducted two underground nuclear explosions, the fifth and sixth such blasts since it abandoned its unilateral moratorium on testing in February. The official Tass news agency said the tests were carried out in the Perm region of the Ural mountains. Each test had a yield of up to 20 kilotons, Tass said. It said the blasts were conducted "in the interests of the national economy" but gave no other details.

Scientists triggered a nuclear weapon beneath the Nevada desert Saturday, less than 24 hours after the Soviet Union announced a nuclear detonation at its Central Asian test site. The Easter weekend tests were the fourth nuclear detonations of 1987 for each country. Chris West of the U.S. Department of Energy said Saturday's weapon experiment, code-named Delama, was conducted at 6:40 a.m.

A nuclear weapon with a yield of less than 20 kilotons was triggered 1,000 feet beneath the Nevada desert Wednesday in the second announced U.S. test of the year. A spokesman for the Department of Energy said the test, code-named Tornero, was conducted at 8:45 a.m.. "No radiation leaked into the atmosphere, and the test was a success," the spokesman said. Six anti-nuclear activists picketed the gates of the Nevada Test Site on Wednesday.