Could the explosion have left chemical or radiation imprints? Physical evidence such as cratering, vitrification, and baking will likely be observed but they wouldn’t be conclusive.
I’m thinking of the Sodom and Gommorah cataclysm. Has there been any studies with that?
There would certainly be residual radiation from un-reacted U-235 or PU-239 present at the site.
But since there where no nuclear weapons in biblical times, I don’t think anyone is going to do a radiation survey of the site.
Well, the biblical don’t-look-back-or-you’ll-die/turn to stone got me thinking.
A quick google search shows your logic doesn’t seem to include the possibility of a UFO coverup. I was going to read more, but I need to learn there are some things I just don’t need to look up…
Radiation, thermal pulse and shockwave will get you regardless of which way you’re facing.
Would there also have been blast shadows burned into the rocks, like we saw on building walls in Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Other than human memory & history books, what evidence is there that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were the sites of nuclear explosions?
Well, a lot of the evidence was cleaned up by people who knew exactly what they were dealing with, and had the resources to deal with it. But I wouldn’t be surprised if there were still some detectable radiological signature there.
Probably not much, actually. The bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki went off above the ground for maximum damage. A lot of the left over radioactive crud got into the stratosphere and probably spread quickly. There are still biological consequences, but those probably wouldn’t show up in any conventional archeological survey 2000 years from now unless we leave good historical records behind.
For 2000 year nuclear blasts, if they are of the same type as our current weapons, we probably wouldn’t see much sign of just 2 blasts. Regular testing as those performed for decades starting in the 50s, however, would be evident from a sudden spiking of C14, among other radioactive isotopes.
I suppose you could have blast shadows and what not, but they’d be weathered pretty quick. Not that there’s any uncontested historical evidence of the existence of Sodom or Gomorrah, but in the highly unlikely possibility they were nuked by aliens (and no other nukes were used anywhere else), it’s possible few physical signs are left.
There were those natural nuclear reactors in Africa somewhere. How were they discovered?
You’d have probably find shocked quartz; something that’s created by nuclear bombs & meteorites but not volcanoes. And while you wouldn’t find much actual radioactivity, you’d find unusual elements left over from the decayed radioactive materials I believe.
Oklo in Gabon - there was an isotope discrepancy. But it’s not quite the same thing.
You would have a layer of carbonised material, this is frequently found in much older excavations where a city has been sacked.
I’d expect some preserved blast damage to downed trees, if there was a rebuilt city there would be evidence of a destruction layer - especially 2000 year old site where efficient clearing up was not a priority - after all they just built city upon the remains of the previous city.
I would also expect the radiocarbon dates to be showing anomalies, perhaps not dating correctly.
Ice core samples should show isotopes produced by the nuclear blast. Although it won’t tell us where it happened.
ETA: Actually I don’t know if a single bomb would be detectable. The plot at the linked Wikipedia article shows a big spike showing “1960s nuclear bombs” but it’s unclear to me whether Hiroshima alone (for example) would have caused a detectable spike.
Volcanic activity will throw up more stuff on a regular basis.
I doubt a single bomb would be detectable in ice core samples above the noise floor.
But the composition of volcanic ash is completely different from nuclear fallout.
Volcanism is one source among others (cosmic rays are another) but the basic point is still there. Background levels of all the longer-lived radioactive isotopes are going to swamp the stuff produced by a single Hiroshima type bomb, especially in an ice core sample.
If it was detonated on the ground, you might be able to detect some trace amounts of a longer lived isotope. But if it’s a traditional mid-air detonation, most of the radioactive material floats off into the stratosphere to be spread around.
Maybe not a Hiroshima-sized bomb, but what about a tsar-bomba-sized bomb, which was about 3500X the yield? The article claims that in terms of fallout-per-yield the tsar bomba was a very clean device, but the extremely large yield would probably still mean a much greater amount of fallout than the Hiroshima bomb.
Pillar of salt. Not, so far as I know, one of the symptoms of severe radiation poisoning.