Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico have just discovered a fascinating new way to reconstruct past nuclear tests even decades after detonation. All they need is a pinch of dirt. It's a clever new method and the kind of thing that could make it easier to tell if rogue nations are telling the truth about their nuclear tests.

This feat of nuclear forensics was spearheaded by Susan Hanson, a nuclear chemist at Los Alamos. Her team developed a way to piece together what were previously overlooked chemical fingerprints to reconstruct a detailed picture of past nuclear explosions—far beyond what scientists thought possible. Hanson tested her method on soil samples from the 1945 Trinity test in New Mexico deserts that was part of the Manhattan Project, the first nuclear detonation ever conducted. Hanson's method recalculated the specifics of that 70-year-old test, reporting the energy yield and efficiency with over 10 times the accuracy as previous estimates. Hanson's research is outlined this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Hanson's new research may help scientists keep tabs on nuclear states flouting current nonproliferation treaties. While underground research stations the world over monitor for the telltale quakes of illicit nuclear tests (cough, North Korea, cough), creating an accurate reconstruction of how powerful and efficient a bomb was requires on-the-ground sampling. But the chemicals that nuclear forensics experts would need decay and disappear rapidly. Often, they're gone after months.

These chemicals are flavors of Zirconium, an element with several short-lived isotopes that are hallmark residues of various types of nuclear weapons. Hanson's method requires hunting for excruciatingly faint flavors of another element, Molybdenum, which is what some Zirconium isotopes transform into as they decay. It's a bit like digging for fossils. By comparing the different amounts of Molybdenum isotopes in a small soil sample, Hanson's team can decipher how powerful and how efficient a nuclear blast was.

Hanson stresses that her method involves looking at just barely perceptible differences in Molybdenum atoms, and requires "analytical methods and high-precision mass spectrometers" a type of chemical analysis tool, that has only been available to scientists in the last few years. That's why the technique has only now been developed.

Testing her analytical technique on soil from the first ever nuclear test, Hanson was able to adjust the history books. The Trinity test was thought to be a blast of 21 kilotons, Hanson says that number is off the mark by a fairly sizable margin. The real number is closer to 22.1 kilotons, which also adjusts our understanding of how efficient that first-ever-blast was.

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