From abstract: The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, through the Office of Test Operations, Albuquerque Operations Office, plans to detonate a nuclear device in a massive salt bed 1,200 feet beneath the land surface. The project, known as Project Gnome, is an element of the Plowshare program--a study of peacetime applications of nuclear fission. The location of the proposed underground shot is in a sparsely-populated area in southeastern Eddy County, N. Mex., east of the Pecos River and about 25 miles southeast of the city of Carlsbad.

From abstract: Drilling at the Project GNOME site, which is in the approximate center of sec. 34, T. 23 S., R. 30 E., NMPM, was undertaken in August and September 1958 by the W-W Drilling Company. The purpose of drilling this hole, which is at the precise location of the proposed shaft, was to determine (1) the lithologic and water-bearing characteristics of the rocks of Cenozoic, Mesozoic, and Paleozoic age that lie above the salt-bearing sequence in the Salado formation; (2) the depth to the top of the unleached salt and associated evaporites in the Salado formation; and (3) the local details of the salt-bearing sequence in the Salado formation.