This is an aerial photo containing a portion of Runit Island, located in the Enewetak Atoll of the Marshall Islands. This atoll was a site of intense nuclear bomb testing by the US from 1946 to 1958, and the two circular features in this image are both nuclear bomb craters. The one in the water remains unaltered since the detonation that caused it, but the one on the island has been altered substantially. In 1958, the US Military detonated an 18 kiloton nuclear bomb nicknamed "Cactus" over Runit Island, which created a crater 105m in diameter. This went untouched until the late 1970's, when the Marshall Islands negotiated control over the Enewetak Atoll from the US. In the negotiations the US agreed to clean up the radioactive debris scattered around the Atoll - an operation that would take 3 years, 4000 US workers, 6 of which lost their lives. In the end the material was mixed with concrete, poured into the crater, and encased in a concrete dome, and that dome is the reason this place has become newsworthy as of late.
The Runit Dome, as it is called, is deteriorating. Cracks are forming in the structure, and rising sea levels over the past 40 years have caused storm and flood events to occur more frequently, working water into the dome and spreading the radioactive material around. Work done by Columbia University and the LA Times has suggested that the dome is at risk of collapsing. If it does, it won't increase the overall radioactivity of the atoll by much - it is already very radioactive - but it does risk the release of Plutonium-239 and other toxic, radioactive heavy metals into the groundwater. The Marshall Islands have had to deal with issues of leftover radioactivity from the era of US bomb testing ever since they regained control of the atoll in 1986.
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