The Strange Glass Born in Nuclear Explosions

Real Clear Science ^ | 19 Apr, 2016 | Ross Pomeroy

[MtnClimber]

5:30 A.M., Monday July 16th, 1945: The day dawned brighter than ever before over the New Mexico desert. But it was not the Sun's soothing rays that set the landscape alight; it was the radiant flash of the very first atomic bomb.

Trinity, the nuclear offspring of the Manhattan Project, detonated with the force of 21,000 tons of TNT. The accompanying fireball reached temperatures of 8,430 degrees Kelvin, hotter than the surface of the sun, and sent a mushroom cloud of smoke and debris soaring more than seven miles into the sky.

That day, every human on the planet was reborn into a nuclear era, one where mankind now held the power to end its existence. Also born that day was an otherworldly, greenish glass, a physical reminder of the cataclysmic explosion. Scientists dubbed the strange material trinitite.

[MtnClimber]

I wonder how radioactive the glass is today.

[The_Media_never_lie]

I think I will forgo a sample.

[SubMareener]

Trinity’s atomic blast catalyzed the transformation. Amidst destructive turbulence and searing heat, sand was thrown up into the fireball, where it melted, reformed, and rained down upon the ground. Scientists discovered proof for this storm strewn all over in the form of trinitite beads — molten drops that solidified before they hit the ground. Years later, these pebbles are still surfacing as ants excavate them from their tunnels.
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Giant Ants! It’s THEM! One of my all time favorite SYFI movies.

[Lurker]

Not very. Half life and all.

L

[Fungi]

It's your article. Did you read it? In fact, to this very day, trinitite remains radioactive, buzzing with activity from isotopes of cobalt, barium, europium, uranium, and plutonium. It's safe to handle, but one would be ill advised to make jewelry out of it.

[smokingfrog]

Not very dangerous, unless you plan on eating it or carrying it around in your pocket every day.

[MtnClimber]

I know there is background radiation everywhere, but what would be the safe exposure levels from a contact nuclear explosion on sand? All the Democrats make it sound like it would be tens of thousands of years. I would like to know the real number for a ground burst.

[TigersEye]

Here is a site that will answer your question in minute detail. It's far too technical for me to understand it all but it's interesting. By its composition the guy even knows how many meters from ground zero his sample came from.

[shibumi]

Rick Harrison on Pawn Stars had someone bring in a piece of this stuff.

You can find pieces of it on eBay for anywhere from $10 - $200 all day long.

[spel_grammer_an_punct_polise]

The half-life of Uranium is 93 years. Supposedly it is ‘safe’ after 93 years.

[SunkenCiv]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinitite
A material similar to trinitite can be formed by meteor impacts, these are impact glasses.

Impactite
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impactite

Impactite is an informal term describing a rock created or modified by the impact of a meteorite. The term encompasses shock-metamorphosed target rocks, melts (suevites) and mixtures of the two, as well as sedimentary rocks with significant impact-derived components (shocked mineral grains, tektites, anomalous geochemical signatures, etc.). In June 2015, NASA reported that impact glass has been detected on the planet Mars... When a meteor strikes a planet’s surface, the energy release from the impact can melt rock and soil into a liquid. If the liquid cools and hardens quickly into a solid, impact glass forms before the atoms have time to arrange into a crystal lattice. Impact glass is dark brown, almost black, and partly transparent.

and from the FRchives, a King Tut angle:

http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/impactite/index

[huldah1776]

weird. I have a green quartz stone. Should I check it for radiation?

I’ve watched programs on chernobyl. Ukraine. People are sick, especially kids. animals have moved in...

Children of Chernobyl

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ujAG_Ofj4M

Wolves in Chernobyl dead zone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0wuc8SsMMI

Green Quartz Healing Crystals (Green stone jewelry. hmmm.)

http://www.crystalsrocksandgems.com/Healing_Crystals/Quartz/GreenQuartz.htm

[WILLIALAL]

...Giant Ants! It’s THEM! One of my all time favorite SYFI movies.....

Ah, I miss those days, when movies like that were made. So little was known about atomic reactions and radiation, that as a kid, you just couldn’t completely rule out the possibility something like that could actually happen. Heck, probably a large part of you hoped it could happen.

There was a lot more unknown back then, that fed the imagination.

[goldbux]

bookmark

[MtnClimber]

The half life is just 50% of the original radioactive breakdown rate. If it started at 1000% over safe levels, after 93 years it would only be 500% of safe levels.

[tumblindice]

Or Alamagordo glass or atomsite. Illegal to find some and stick it in your pocket now, believe it or not.
My grandmother, long gone, was a rock hound. She visited the Petrified forest before it was a park and picked up some petrified wood for her rock garden. Sure that’s illegal now too.

[Still Thinking]

Not very. The highly radioactive stuff doesn’t stay that way long and the stuff with a long half life isn’t very radioactive.

[hawaiianninja]

Reminds me of Kryptonite for some reason.

[rottndog]

Rule of thumb...any radioactive element is considered ‘safe’ after 5 half lives of decay.