Some of those investigations were more than theoretical,
as the Jicarilla Apache well know:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Gasbuggy
Fun pic of it here: https://twitter.com/whatisnuclear/status/1107498549074264065...
Source: This 370-page book called Plowshare; a selected, annotated bibliography of the civil, industrial, and scientific uses for nuclear explosions, compiled by Robert G. West [and] Robert C. Kelly.
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015095076132&vi...