The Ghostly Legacy of Hiroshima Has Finally Been Discovered in Physical Form

Science Alert ^ | 05/14/2019 | PETER DOCKRILL

[BenLurkin]

In 2015, retired geologist and marine ecologist Mario Wannier was examining samples of beach sand collected from Japan's Motoujina Peninsula, just 6 kilometres (3.7 miles) south of Hiroshima's hypocentre, or ground zero.

Primarily, Wannier and fellow researcher Marc de Urreiztieta were looking for traces of microscopic organisms called foraminifera in the sediment, but that's not all they found.

These strange glass spherule particles – some of which resemble the kind of glassy debris ejected into the atmosphere during meteorite impacts – are estimated to constitute up to 2.5 percent of all the sand in the beaches around Hiroshima.

Wannier ended up collecting some 10,000 samples of this unusual grit, which were examined by researchers at the Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley, using electron microscopy and X-ray analysis.

[irishjuggler]

Towards the end Japan was claiming being victimized.

That's how you know you're winning. If the enemy isn't claiming being victimized by the end of the war, you're losing.

[M Kehoe]

Cool.

5.56mm

[know.your.why]

Yeah, because absent dropping 2 big ones...
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Japan or rather Germany would have done the whole world with atom bombs if they could. I believe that the whole world was saved from what, 10+ bombs dropped if Hitler got there first? And WW3 would have probably happened by now. ...just my $.02

[SkyDancer]

I went with a tour group to Hiroshima. I came back with a film canister of gravel from Ground Zero. I have a Hapi robe from the hotel we stayed at (yes, I paid for it). Interesting museum they have there also.

[SkyDancer]

He had two great quotes:

1) I'm afraid we've wakened a sleeping giant and

2) there'll be a rife behind every blade of grass.

In reading about the pre-eminent invasion of Japan, their citizens had sharpened bamboo lances to defend the country.

[dfwgator]

Japan or rather Germany would have done the whole world with atom bombs if they could.

Germany didn't need an atom bomb to do this......

Warsaw, 1945

[TXnMA]

" Could any of that debris have come from the 520 Atmospheric atomic and nuclear test done between 1954 to 1992?"

No, because of their mass, particles of that size don't travel more than a few miles through the atmosphere. Any that made it as far as Japan would be measured in microns -- not millimeters...

[olepap]

I wonder why we didn’t surround Japan and starve them into submission.

[dfwgator]

I believe after the Battle of Okinawa, the determination was made that it might take years for the Japanese to surrender, if we’d invaded or tried a blockade.

We didn’t have the time to wait.

[NorthMountain]

More importantly, he warned his bosses that if they started a war with the United States, they’d be successful for about six months, then they’d be crushed.

[Gulf War One]

Yes, if I recall correctly the estimates were on the order of 1,000,000 allied casualties and 10,000,000 Japanese - if Operation Olympic had occurred instead.

The bombs took lives, to be sure, BUT THEY SAVED MANY MORE.

[Hoosier-Daddy]

Considering the fire bombing of Tokyo...

[ConservativeWarrior]

Riding a subway in Japan, Dec 7th, 2010, my sister read on the news kiosk: “This day in history: Japan enters WWII”

[SkyDancer]

I thought it was eighteen months; I think it was the battle of Midway that was the end and from then on they lost. But no matter - weird how it was the same with Germany and Stalingrad, almost the same time limit.

(stuff you learn when home schooled).

[wildbill]

We need to send some of that sand to N,Korea and Iran without even a diplomatic note.

[campaignPete R-CT]

Yes, they are

[NorthMountain]

Battle of Midway was the first week of June, 1942. Seven months, almost to the day, from the attack on Pearl Harbor. The Guadalcanal campaign ran from August ‘42 to February ‘43 … if Midway didn’t put paid to the Japanese account (I think it did), Guadalcanal definitely did.

[SkyDancer]

Some setbacks but yeah.

[caver]

Nice succinct list of atrocities.

[Billthedrill]

Nice catch, and you beat me to it. That Tokyo fire raid on 10 March 1945 was the single deadliest day in all of human warfare. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not much compared to what we had already done to no fewer than 66 Japanese cities at that point and would have continued to do up to the invasion. When the A-bombs went off we were preparing to redeploy heavy bombers from the European theater to the islands we’d taken. Fire raids, 24/7, from the same RAF and USAAF assets that had burned Germany in addition to the ones that had already burned Japan. Had we had to invade we’d have been shooting kids with bamboo spears in a post apocalyptic hell.