As is well known, projects to turn the rivers southward to the Caspian Sea and the Aral Sea were widely discussed in the post-war USSR. They struck the imagination with their scale. Ordinary people imagined multi-kilometer lines of diggers or, at best, excavators. The official propaganda did not show the details: the construction of channels was supposed to intensify by means of series of directed nuclear blasts of low power.
Moreover, they also wanted to arm the miners with a "peaceful atom." In the mid-1960s they were going to get access to copper ores on the Udokan mountain range in Transbaikalia in this way. Fortunately for ecology, the project did not come to fruition. Perhaps a "high-profile" paleontological discovery made during preparations for the explosion interfered with it.
By early 1964, the main mining operations necessary to calculate reserves had been completed at the Udokan copper deposit in northern Transbaikalia, near the village of Chara. The result exceeded expectations - a potential of about 24.6 million tonnes representing the third largest in the world. By July 1965, a chamber for a nuclear charge had already been prepared in one of the tunnels.
However, at the same time, in the same month, the book "The Lower Proterozoic of the Northeast of the Olekmo-Vitimskaya Mountain Country" was signed for publication, which turned over the world's paleontological ideas about the age of the oldest multicellular living organisms. The book describes the findings of the author, the Soviet geologist Leites fossilized tubes with thin transverse septa inside, similar to those in the skeleton of corals. Being still outside of any scientific classification, they were called the "Udokan problematics". Later they were singled out into a separate genus - udokania leites (after the surname of the discoverer).
Leites himself was inclined to believe that he found the remains of tube worms. It was also suggested that the tubes were inorganic. However, the crystalline hypothesis is refuted by the smooth lines of their curves. The most widespread hypothesis today is that the Udokan problem belongs to intestinal invertebrate organisms. This includes jellyfish, sea anemones, coral and crested. Previously, it was believed that the first multicellular organisms, including representatives of this type, appeared on Earth about 600 million years ago. With the publication of Leites' book, the time threshold has been pushed back to almost 1.9 billion years.
The book was published in 1000 copies. Only 8 pages are devoted to the Udokan problem. And yet, the world could not miss the discovery, fundamentally changing the ideas about the chronology of the biosphere's development.
The first nuclear explosion at the Udokan field was scheduled for early January 1966, but, as they say, something went wrong. Nowhere in the materials devoted to the project are the reasons for cancelling the decision to explode revealed. It cannot be ruled out that the project leaders were embarrassed by the international resonance of Leites' discovery.
Let's assess the situation: the scientific world is furiously discussing sensational findings of the distant Udokan, and suddenly learns that this very place has already been turned into radioactive dust. Together with priceless paleontological treasures still stored there, which could finally clarify the nature of the find. An uncomfortable situation.
Especially since in 1957 the northern spurs of the Udokan are already "famous" for the most powerful 11-point earthquake in the USSR. Enough with the "storms" and destruction.
