For years, Bikini Atoll has been associated with the destructive legacy of nuclear weapons testing. Stanford University reported that between 1946 and 1958, the United States detonated 23 nuclear devices across the Marshall Islands atoll, forcing its residents from their homes. The explosions left behind radioactive contamination that prevented permanent resettlement. Yet decades later, the waters around the abandoned atoll presented a very different picture. Marine biologists visiting the lagoon encountered fish, sharks and large colonies of coral. The corals were particularly striking because they could not simply move away from contaminated areas. Some appeared to have begun growing roughly a decade after the nuclear tests, raising questions about how they had managed to persist in an environment exposed to radiation.
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