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| Fig.1. Hawksbill sea turtle, Eretmochelys imbricata (Credit: Clark Anderson/Aquaimages, 2006) |
At 5:30 a.m. on July 16, 1945, the first nuclear weapon was detonated under code name “Trinity.” Although disagreement still remains as to the start or nature of the Anthropocene, many scientists agree that nuclear weapons testing caused a widespread anthropogenic signal in the geologic record. In a couple short decades, these weapons tests doubled the amount of the radioactive isotope carbon-14 in our atmosphere. The isotope in the air entered plants during photosynthesis and animal tissues as animals ate the plants, leaving behind a radioactive trace in the natural world.
