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If the material was formed in the fireball rather than on the ground, it should be
spread out on a lot more territory than just the immediate blast area.
I'm positive I heard the woman at the rock shop tell a potential customer that their
collection was from 1980 and that it was legally collected at that time.
$30 a gram. BTW... I already have an art deco watch with a radium dial so I passed
on buying some of that Trinitite..
Maybe someone who really knows this stuff can add to this. It sounds
like what happens when a star blows up and creates heavier elements.
When I said the "site was more radioactive" before the cleanup, I'm speaking in terms of BULK MATERIAL at the site COLLECTIVELY making the site more radioactive. A single piece of Trinitite collected right after the blast would also be less radioactive today than it was then due to a phenomenon known as "radioactive decay" - see following par.
I know just enough about atomic theory to get myself in trouble by attempting to explain it. But one simple fact of physics is that ALL radioactive materials "decay" over time, going from radioactive to inert given enough time. In some cases this can be eons and in other instances it can be in seconds. Carbon 14 is one such element that takes eons to decay, thereby giving scientists a "time clock" by which to judge age of ancient matter.
Taking info from the Wikipedia site on Trinitite:
Quote:
There are many known fakes in circulation among collectors. These fakes use a variety of means to achieve the glassy green silica look as well as mild radioactivity. However, only trinitite from a nuclear explosion will contain certain neutron activation products which are not found in naturally radioactive ores and minerals. In addition, more detailed gamma spectroscopy can narrow down the potential nuclear explosions from which the material formed.
I copied this from a web site that belongs to someone who claims to have entered the site of the blast before it was cleaned up and taken several loads of the Trinitite.
Quote:
One interesting question: how long could I stay here and not be affected by radiation? The best answer right then was "not long." I grabbed the shovel out of the truck and scooped up enough glass to fill a cardboard carton. I drove to the gate, closed and locked it, and peeled out of my boots. They could have been radioactive. I tossed them in the truck bed and drove away. An El Paso rock shop was my next stop in the Trinitite Project. The owner tested my box of green glass with a Geiger counter. The radioactivity was mild, too low to be harmful during my hours of nearness, lower even than his samples of high-grade uranium ore. I would not need to dress in shielded clothing when I go back.
From everything I've seen, the atoms were there before the blast.
It was sand/rock before.
It was converted via heat/pressure to Trinitite.
It's like in the oven you shove in cake batter,
out comes cake. Make mine coconut cake.
Yes, but that article said some recent analysis has raised the possibility that Trinitite
was formed from material sucked up into the cloud and then rained back down
in molten form. If so, it's likely that it was spread a lot further than if formed on
the ground by heat and pressure.
Once upon a time there was the AEC - Atomic Energy Commission - that controlled ownership of radioactive isotopes and personnel exposure/allowable dosages to radiation. Right after WWII knowledge of the effects of radiation on humans was not as well understood as it is today and "allowable dosages" were much higher than they are now.
Quote:
Both public and occupational regulatory dose limits are set by federal (i.e., EPA, NRC, and DOE) and state agencies (e.g., Agreement States) to limit cancer risk. Other radiation dose limits are applied to limit other potential biological effects with workers' skin and lens of the eye.
Annual Radiation Dose Limits Agency Radiation Worker - 5,000 mrem (NRC, "occupationally" exposed)
General Public - 100 mrem (NRC, member of the public)
General Public - 25 mrem (NRC, D&D all pathways)
General Public - 10 mrem (EPA, air pathway)
General Public - 4 mrem (EPA, drinking water pathway)
I suspect the Trinitite is green because of natural Iron in the Silica sand. As an experiment take a sample of local sand and put it in a clay saucer over a very hot (like build the fire in a clay pot and use a blower to get it really, really hot) fire and see if the melted sand has a green color after it cools. Old fashioned Coca Cola bottles were green because it kept some of the UV rays from changing the soda and silica glass with some iron is much cheaper than pure glass.
Any radioactivity in the Trinitite would have been generated by Neutron activation during the explosion or by entrainment of the daughter products or unexploded Plutonium during the cooling stages of the fireball. Most of the Trinitite was created by melting the local sand during the early parts of the explosion while the nuclear material was still reacting and the fireball was still expanding. IIRC nuclear bomb atomic reaction does not last for more than a few milliseconds while the heated gasses can take minutes to expand and cool.
I am amazed that the Manhattan project went from concept to three functioning bombs, using two completely different technologies, is less than three years. It takes our current military industrial complex 5 years and many millions just to develop the bid package let alone the hardware. See how much more efficient they have become at transferring our dollars into their profit.
Last edited by GregW; 09-28-2010 at 05:44 AM..
Reason: added material
I suspect the Trinitite is green because of natural Iron in the Silica sand. As an experiment take a sample of local sand and put it in a clay saucer over a very hot (like build the fire in a clay pot and use a blower to get it really, really hot) fire and see if the melted sand has a green color after it cools. Old fashioned Coca Cola bottles were green because it kept some of the UV rays from changing the soda and silica glass with some iron is much cheaper than pure glass.
I've never heard of iron turning glass green. Iron typically turns glass brown, as you might find in half the beer or root beer bottles out there.
My understanding of the greenness of trinitite is the uranium turns it green; copper could achieve a similar effect, as copper is what they typically use to make green bottles green.
I check on the color effects of various metals on glass.
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