Deep-Sea Observatories for Astrophysics - Stardust on the Ocean Floor

Was Earth exposed to recent supernova-explosions This proposal studies the past 10 million years for unique signatures trapped in Earth's deep ocean archives. It tackles the fundamental questions: how and where are the heavy elements made in nature Did nearby supernovae impact on Earth Based on our recent work, demonstrating that multiple events indeed happened in our galactic neighbourhood and left their fingerprint on Earth through radionuclides, this project enters a new stage and will provide for the first time a detailed time history of close-by supernova events. The set of radionuclide data can also be utilised for Earth's climate record. ANU's world-leading capabilities for ultra-sensitive single atom counting will be refined.