  The effects of the variation of the dimensionless strong interaction
parameter Xq=mq/Lambda{QCD} (mq is the quark mass, Lambda{QCD} is the QCD
scale) are enhanced about 1.5 x 10**5 times in the 7.6 eV "nuclear clock"
transition between the ground and first excited states in the 229Th nucleus and
about 1 x 10**8 times in the relative shift of the 0.1 eV compound resonance in
150Sm.The best terrestrial limit on the temporal variation of the fundamental
constants, |delta(Xq)/Xq| < 4 x 10**-9 at 1.8 billion years ago (|d(Xq/Xq)/dt|
< 2.2 x 10**-18 y**-1), is obtained from the shift of this Sm resonance derived
from the Oklo natural nuclear reactor data. The results for 229Th and 150Sm are
obtained by extrapolation from light nuclei where the many-body calculations
can be performed more accurately. The errors produced by such extrapolation may
be smaller than the errors of direct calculations in heavy nuclei. The
extrapolation results are compared with the "direct" estimates obtained using
the Walecka model. A number of numerical relations needed for the calculations
of the variation effects in nuclear physics and atomic spectroscopy have been
obtained: for the nuclear binding energy delta(E)/E ~ -1.45 delta(mq)/mq, for
the spin-orbit intervals delta(Eso)/Eso ~ -0.22 delta(mq)/mq, for the nuclear
radius delta(r)/r ~ 0.3 delta(mq)/mq (in units of Lambda{QCD}); for the shifts
of nuclear resonances and weakly bound energy levels delta(Er) ~ 10
delta(Xq)/Xq MeV.
