Hiding in Plain Sight: Uncovering Nuclear Histories

Nuclear histories are global yet worryingly incomplete. Linking a plutonium refinery in Washington, a uranium mine in Saskatchewan, a tsunami at Fukushima, a nuclear bomb test site in Rajasthan, a reactor ‘accident’ at Chernobyl, a shipping accident in the English Channel, and a president-to-prime-minister confrontation over the US-Canada frontier, these quasi-autobiographical essays prove the importance of public archives, personal files with fragments, oral histories, and private recollections. This is the social history, business history, environmental history, labour history, scientific and technological history, and indigenous history of the twentieth century. Hiding in Plain Sight offers everyone an entry to the irregularities of our ‘disorderly nuclear world’, and offers other researchers crucial insights to what richness lies within.

RADIOCARBON IN GLOBAL TROPOSPHERIC CARBON DIOXIDE

ABSTRACT Since the 1950s, observations of radiocarbon (14C) in tropospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) have been conducted in both hemispheres, documenting the so-called nuclear “bomb spike” and its transfer into the oceans and the terrestrial biosphere, the two compartments permanently exchanging carbon with the atmosphere. Results from the Heidelberg global network of Δ14C-CO2 observations are revisited here with respect to the insights and quantitative constraints they provided on these carbon exchange fluxes. The recent development of global and hemispheric trends of Δ14C-CO2 are further discussed in regard to their suitability to continue providing constraints for 14C-free fossil CO2 emission changes on the global and regional scale.

EVIDENCE OF MASS MORTALITY OF THE LONG-LIVED BIVALVE MERCENARIA STIMPSONI CAUSED BY A CATASTROPHIC TSUNAMI

ABSTRACT Tsunamis are huge disasters that can significantly damage benthic organisms and the sea-bottom environment in coastal areas. It is of great ecological importance to understand how benthic ecosystems respond to such destructive forces and how individual species are affected. Investigating the effect of such disasters on animals that are seldom caught alive is particularly difficult. Bivalve mollusks are especially suitable for investigating how a tsunami affects coastal benthic species because they preserve an environmental record in their shells that can be extended back in time by crossdating the records of multiple individuals. Here we studied dead shells of Mercenaria stimpsoni, a long-lived clam, and precisely determined the time of death by using nuclear bomb–induced radiocarbon (bomb-14C) and by counting annual growth increments. First, a quasi-continuous, regional bomb-14C record was created by analyzing the shells of 6 live-caught M. stimpsoni individuals. Then 27 dead shells collected from the seafloor of Funakoshi Bay were 14C-dated and analyzed. The results showed that the huge tsunami that struck northeastern Japan on 11 March 2011 caused mass mortality of this bivalve in Funakoshi Bay. Nine of the 27 clams died during the March 2011 tsunami, probably by starvation after burial by tsunami deposits or exposure above the seafloor as a result of sediment liquefaction during the earthquake. The dating method used in this study can help us understand how long-lived marine organisms with low population density are affected by huge natural disasters such as a tsunami.

Analysis of 14C, 13C and Aspartic Acid Racemization in Teeth and Bones to Facilitate Identification of Unknown Human Remains: Outcomes of Practical Casework

The identification of unknown human remains represents an important task in forensic casework. If there are no clues as to the identity of the remains, then the age, sex, and origin are the most important factors to limit the search for a matching person. Here, we present the outcome of application of so-called bomb pulse radiocarbon (14C derived from above-ground nuclear bomb tests during 1955–1963) analysis to birthdate human remains. In nine identified cases, 14C analysis of tooth crowns provided an estimate of the true date of birth with an average absolute error of 1.2 ± 0.8 years. Analysis of 14C in tooth roots also showed a good precision with an average absolute error of 2.3 ± 2.5 years. Levels of 14C in bones can determine whether a subject has lived after 1955 or not, but more precise carbon turnover data for bones would be needed to calculate date of birth and date of death. Aspartic acid racemization analysis was performed on samples from four cases; in one of these, the year of birth could be predicted with good precision, whereas the other three cases are still unidentified. The stable isotope 13C was analyzed in tooth crowns to estimate provenance. Levels of 13C indicative of Scandinavian provenance were found in known Scandinavian subjects. Teeth from four Polish subjects all showed higher 13C levels than the average for Scandinavian subjects.

Radiation Sounds

On March 1, 1954, the US military detonated “Castle Bravo,” its most powerful nuclear bomb, at Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Two days later, the US military evacuated the Marshallese to a nearby atoll where they became part of a classified study, without their consent, on the effects of radiation on humans. In Radiation Sounds Jessica A. Schwartz examines the seventy-five years of Marshallese music developed in response to US nuclear militarism on their homeland. Schwartz shows how Marshallese singing draws on religious, cultural, and political practices to make heard the deleterious effects of US nuclear violence. Schwartz also points to the literal silencing of Marshallese voices and throats compromised by radiation as well as the United States’ silencing of information about the human radiation study. By foregrounding the centrality of the aural and sensorial in understanding nuclear testing’s long-term effects, Schwartz offers new modes of understanding the relationships between the voice, sound, militarism, indigeneity, and geopolitics.