  Eventual signals of split sypersymmetry in cosmic ray physics are analyzed in
detail. The study focusses particularly on quasi-stable colorless R-hadrons
originating through confinement of long-lived gluinos (with quarks,
anti-quarks, and gluons) produced in pp collisions at astrophysical sources.
Because of parton density requirements, the gluino has a momentum which is
considerable smaller than the energy of the primary proton, and so production
of heavy (mass ~ 500 GeV) R-hadrons requires powerful cosmic ray engines able
to accelerate particles up to extreme energies, somewhat above 10^{13.6} GeV.
Using a realistic Monte Carlo simulation with the AIRES engine, we study the
main characteristics of the air showers triggered when one of these exotic
hadrons impinges on a stationary nucleon of the Earth atmosphere. We show that
R-hadron air showers present clear differences with respect to those initiated
by standard particles. We use this shower characteristics to construct
observables which may be used to distinguish long-lived gluinos at the Pierre
Auger Observatory.
