Public Evidence Explorer

What can the historical record actually support?

THE ROSETTA WEB™ treats evidence as more than a collection of documents. Evidence is evaluated against specific historical propositions: who performed an activity, where and when it occurred, what material or hazard was involved, how workers were monitored, what records were created, what survives, and what those records can actually establish.

What Rosetta means by evidence

Source, proposition, context, and limits.

Not every document, statement, or historical reference carries the same evidentiary weight. Rosetta preserves the source and asks exactly what proposition it supports—and what it does not.

Contemporaneous primary records

Records created during the operation, event, monitoring activity, or administrative action being studied.

Later official summaries

Agency histories, evaluations, reports, and retrospective institutional accounts.

Scientific & evidentiary analyses

Technical evaluations that interpret measurements, processes, monitoring systems, or historical records.

Testimony & interviews

Worker, participant, and witness accounts preserved with their context and limitations.

Secondary histories

Books and scholarship that provide context and research leads and can point back toward underlying records.

Inference

Reasoned interpretation kept explicitly separate from facts directly documented by a source.

A secondary source can identify an important research lead without becoming proof of the underlying historical claim.

Explore the evidence system

Follow the record from place to proposition.

Facilities

Sites, buildings, areas, contractors, and operational histories.

Organizations

Agencies, field offices, contractors, laboratories, and institutional relationships.

Materials

Radionuclides, source materials, chemical forms, and material genealogy.

Shipments

Movement, custody, receipt, transfer, and disposition of nuclear materials.

Operations

Processes, tasks, projects, incidents, and exposure pathways.

Occupational

Workers, monitoring eligibility, dosimetry, bioassay, and exposure evidence.

Documents

Primary records, reports, logs, correspondence, and documentary provenance.

Missing Evidence

Expected records, unresolved gaps, custody questions, and retrieval actions.

Missing and unavailable records

Absence has to be described precisely.

Rosetta does not collapse every unsuccessful search into “missing” or “destroyed.” The status depends on what the evidence actually establishes.

NOT LOCATED — searched for but not found in the documented search.

DOCUMENTED MISSING — evidence establishes that expected records are missing.

DOCUMENTED DESTROYED — specific evidence documents destruction or authorized disposition.

TRANSFERRED — records moved to another custodian or repository.

CLASSIFIED / RESTRICTED — records or contents exist, but access is restricted.

EXISTENCE UNCONFIRMED — the expected record has not yet been shown to exist.

A critical distinction

“No records found” is a search result.

It documents the result of a particular search, with a particular scope, at a particular time. By itself, it does not prove that the records never existed or were destroyed.

Explore missing evidence →

Worker denominator

Who is actually represented?

A surviving monitoring dataset can be internally accurate and still fail to represent the full worker population or historical exposure situation. Rosetta follows the population through each stage:

Workers present → potentially exposed → monitoring eligible → actually monitored → surviving individual results → represented in later dose reconstruction

Dose reconstructability

Six questions, not one.

The existence of some records does not automatically establish that a historical dose can be reconstructed reliably. Conversely, a records gap does not automatically establish that reconstruction is impossible.

Monitoring Adequacy

Was the relevant worker population appropriately monitored for the historical hazard?

Evidence Completeness

Do sufficient historical records survive?

Interpretive Fit

Do the measurements represent the worker, task, material, pathway, and period?

Data Lineage

Can later values be traced to contemporaneous source records and documented transformations?

Records-Search Sufficiency

Were plausible creators, series, accessions, repositories, restrictions, and review depth adequately tested?

Classification / Access Resolution

Could restricted, segregated, withdrawn, or unreviewed records materially affect what is available?

Contradictions

Contradictions are evidence too.

Rosetta preserves conflicting statements rather than silently choosing one. Differences may reflect dates, populations, definitions, record versions, institutional perspectives, or genuinely conflicting evidence. The contradiction remains visible until stronger evidence resolves it.

The Rosetta question

What should have existed?

Rosetta asks not only “What records survive?” but “What records should have existed, who should have been represented in them, what happened to those records, and what can the surviving evidence actually support?”

Publication pipeline

Private research does not automatically become public evidence.

Rosetta research can begin with a book, archival lead, worker account, finding aid, or historical document. Public evidence is published only after the underlying source, proposition, provenance, and limitations have been reviewed.

Evidence status

Preserve uncertainty.

Evidence may be confirmed, provisional, contradictory, restricted, incomplete, or unresolved. Status is updated as stronger records are located without erasing the earlier research history.

Open the Evidence Status Key →

Material genealogy

Nuclear materials leave documentary trails.

Rosetta follows material from receipt and custody through processing, use, monitoring, transfer, and disposition, linking material history to facilities, operations, workers, and expected records.

Explore nuclear materials →

Example collection · MSRE

From historical source to evidence proposition.

The Molten-Salt Reactor Experiment illustrates how Rosetta connects operations, radionuclides, monitoring, incidents, worker populations, and records without assuming that one surviving document answers every reconstructability question.

Operational evidence

Building 7503 operations, fuel-salt handling, sampling, maintenance, off-gas behavior, shutdown work, and incident response can be traced across technical and health-physics records.

Monitoring evidence

Field monitoring, contamination control, personnel dosimetry, bioassay questions, and changing hazards must be matched to the workers, tasks, materials, and periods they actually represent.

The public collection demonstrates method. Detailed internal evidence registers and SEC analytical controls remain separate from the public website.

Evidence cards

What a Rosetta finding looks like.

Evidence cards separate what a source establishes from what remains unknown and identify the evidence that could confirm, narrow, contradict, or resolve the finding. These examples demonstrate the public format; they do not expose private research registers.

Documented Fact

Hematite · Ra-226-contaminated filter-press plates

Later remediation records identify 215 Ra-226-contaminated filter-press plates in the Hematite burial environment.

What the evidence establishes: A physical radium-bearing source existed and was later identified.
What it does not establish by itself: The complete plate lifecycle, activity per plate, every worker who handled the plates, or historical dose consequence.
What Would Change This Finding?: Plate IDs, assay/spectroscopy data, excavation records, burial logs, process records, worker assignments, and radium-relevant monitoring.
Last evidentiary review: September 2026

View Evidence & Provenance

Source basis: SEC-00267/Hematite evidence set and remediation records assembled in the Rosetta research record.

Origin: Official facility/remediation and SEC-review records.

Rosetta status: Source identified; exact document/page-level public links will be added only after verification.

Contradictory

Pinellas · Plutonium availability for worker uptake

The public record contains differing evidence and interpretations concerning plutonium form, containment, shipment history, bioassay, and potential availability for uptake.

What the evidence establishes: Plutonium-related records and monitoring evidence exist and have been subjects of continuing technical review.
What remains unresolved: Whether all relevant plutonium was nondispersible or whether any operation created an intake pathway for the evaluated worker population.
What Would Change This Finding?: Shipment/receiving records, material form and project records, complete bioassay denominators, rejected-sample documentation, and relevant classified operational records.
Last evidentiary review: September 2026

View Evidence & Provenance

Source basis: Pinellas Work Group proceedings, including the January 29, 2026 public review, plus shipment/bioassay evidence in the Rosetta research record.

Origin: Advisory Board/SC&A/NIOSH proceedings and primary facility-to-facility records.

Rosetta status: Contradictory evidence preserved; document-level links are published only when verified.

Unresolved

Hematite · Red/Green Room air-sampling coverage

Available review records document a reduction in air-sampling points between 1961 and 1962; the reason for the change has not been established in the records presently assembled.

Why it matters: Sampling density can affect whether area-air data represent actual operations and worker exposure opportunities.
What Would Change This Finding?: Production logs, HP logs, sampler maps, relocation/removal rationale, process-change records, and worker occupancy records.
Last evidentiary review: September 2026

View Evidence & Provenance

Source basis: Official Hematite review records documenting the 1961–1962 change in Red/Green Room air-sampling points.

Origin: NIOSH/DCAS and associated SEC-review materials.

Rosetta status: Sampling change documented; causal explanation remains unresolved.

Partial Evidence

Mound · PORECON accountability chain

The September 2016 Work Group record documents that PORECON-related issues remained open pending additional documentation.

What the evidence establishes: A follow-up product was expected and specific matrix issues were not closed at that meeting.
What remains unknown: Whether the promised paper was later reviewed and whether a subsequent formal closure occurred elsewhere in the Board record.
What Would Change This Finding?: The promised memorandum/paper, SC&A review, and a traceable Work Group or Board closure record.
Last evidentiary review: September 2026

View Evidence & Provenance

Source basis: September 29, 2016 Mound Plant Work Group transcript and related Mound issue-matrix materials.

Origin: Advisory Board Work Group / SC&A / NIOSH record.

Rosetta status: Open status at the 2016 meeting is documented; later closure product remains a retrieval target unless located and verified.

Status labels describe the evidence supporting the precise proposition shown. They are not ratings of a facility, agency, petition, or person.

Evidence system status

An operating research framework.

The public Evidence Explorer is the readable front end of a larger Rosetta research system. New records, corrections, contradictions, and retrieval results can refine the public record over time while preserving provenance and earlier evidence states.

Continue exploring Rosetta →

Accountability standard

Evidence first. Uncertainty visible.

Our formal Accountability Rule governs how Rosetta records findings, conflicting evidence, missing records, historical closure, and new challenges.

Read the standard →