Andy Cundy (Southampton, UK): Nuclear Fingerprints of the Anthropocene

The detonation of the Trinity atomic device on July 16, 1945 marked a new era inthe world's geopolitics - The Atomic or Nuclear Age. Subsequent nucleardetonations globally distributed a suite of radioactive fallout products which havebeen captured in the Earth's sediments, soils, ice, and biological structures suchas corals, trees, and skeletons, fingerprinting the mid-twentieth century in ourgeological record. This talk presents and assesses work by the AnthropoceneWorking Group (AWG) and partner organisations comparing the records ofnuclear fallout (bomb radiocarbon, the various isotopes of plutonium, and otherfallout-derived radionuclides) and other physical, chemical and biologicalindicators of human activity in recent geological materials across the globe,culminating in the recent proposal to establish a GSSP (a Global BoundaryStratotype Section and Point) for a new geological Anthropocene epoch atCrawford Lake (Canada).