LANL News:

WASHINGTON, D.C.—In a ceremony last week, National Nuclear Security Administrator Lt. Gen. (retired) Frank G. Klotz presented five Los Alamos National Laboratory members awards for their exceptional work in a large-scale, on-site field exercise held in Jordan to evaluate progress in the development of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.

At the Oct. 14 ceremony, General Klotz presented LANL team leader Ward Hawkins with the Silver Award for Distinguished Service, and team members Richard Kelley, Emily Schultz-Fellenz, Aviva Sussman and Kenneth Wohletz with the Bronze Award for Excellent Service.

More than 200 experts from 44 countries participated in Integrated Field Exercise ’14, using 120 tons of equipment to search for the site of a simulated nuclear explosion in a 1,000-square-kilometer area on the banks of the Dead Sea.

Although the Treaty allows up to 130 days for the completion of an on-site inspection, the exercise compressed the timeline to only five weeks. The exercise tested the ability of the 40 inspectors to find and analyze data from a simulated nuclear explosion site within the maximum inspection area allowed by the Treaty.

The LANL team was joined by other experts from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories, as well as those from other countries. All of the teams put in long days under difficult circumstances, making the success of the field exercise a remarkable accomplishment.