[meteorite-list] TRINITITE URBAN MYTHS

From: Sterling K. Webb <kelly_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:04:54 2004
Message-ID: <3CF44485.1FC4BD2C_at_bhil.com>

Hi, List,

    Wow! What a lot of mythologizing. I hardly know where to
begin.
    My experience of Trinitite dates from pieces I scrounged
directly from the site in 1947-49, as a child. By the time I was
nine, I had acquired a Geiger counter (as well as a box full of
mine samples of various uranium ores). When it was less than five
years old, the Trinitite would "buzz" the counter, but it was
weak in ionizing radiation compared to a nice big chunk of
pitchblende.
    The activity of a mineral displaying induced radioactivity
drops off with time as the isotopes in it continue their
radioactive decay. By 1956-7, I couldn't get my pile of Trinitite
to do much more than occasionally burp the Geiger counter.
Admittedly, this Geiger counter was a crude instrument by today's
standards. At the present age of a Trinitite sample, the level of
emissions should be minimal, needing a very sensitive instrument
to detect at all.
    As for "living with" Trinitite, I've been living with it in
my house (originally in cardboard boxes, but now in little
plastic display cases) for 55 years now, and I have not yet
mutated into anything except a much older version of myself, for
which phenomenon I doubt the Trinitite is responsible.
    Anyone living in an area with plutonic bedrock or at a high
altitude is getting more radiation from that than they would get
from having a box of Trinitite in the house. Another common risk
that exceeds the risk of living with Trinitite is living downwind
from a coal-fired electrical power generator (and who doesn't?)
because they release more radioactives in their smoke, in the
form of trace elements from the coal, than ever leaked from any
nuclear power reactor in the U.S., including the Three Mile
Island incident.
    The only significant environmental risks from radioactivity
are in the geographic areas of certain well-known old processing
and storage facilities and if you live next to one of them,
having Trinitite around is going to make no difference anyway.
(You should move.)
    The chance of a "speck" of plutonium surviving in a piece of
Trinitite is zero, zilch, zip, nada. First, the Fat Boy prototype
was extremely efficient, achieving a measured yield whose error
bars lie right across the theoretical 100% efficiency. Second,
the plutonium core reached temperatures exceeding 30,000,000
degrees Kelvin. Super-heated plasma at that temperature does not
permit the survival of "specks."
    Younger generations are always horrified by the notion that
50 years ago, a ten year old child could purchase, by mail order,
radioactive sources from the A. C. Gilbert Co., including small
radium-tipped needles to put in a Wilson Cloud Chamber, where it
would produce a huge shower of (alpha) particles. They sold gamma
and beta radiation sources, too, but the radium needle was the
most expensive: $1.50 + $.15 postage!
    At that time, shoe stores had big leaky stand-up fluoroscopes
that imaged the bones of the feet for sizing. I used to run into
a local shoe store at least once a week to watch my toe bones
wiggle and probably accumulated more radiation in the form of
soft x-ray exposure with each and every use than from a lifetime
of living with Trinitite!
    My father was a pharmacist and his drug store had a few
bottles of radium tonic sitting in the stockroom, left over from
before WWII. Radium tonic was just what the name implies, an
aqueous solution of radium salts, sold on the premise that
radioactivity was a good thing and would cure whatever ailed you.
Continued use of the tonic actually killed you, of course, but it
was only banned in the early 1940's.
    Before 1940, there was no commercial use for uranium except
as a pigment in glass and pottery glazes. It's not the red, but
the orange-red, Fiesta Ware that used uranium salts in the glaze.
Their use was discontinued after WWII, because of the cost, not
the risk. Later Fiesta Ware (from 1986 on) has different colors
than the original Fiesta Ware, so only antique Fiesta Ware is a
concern here.
    The mineral content of old glazed pieces (of all varieties of
china wares) tends to leach into acid foods, so if you're a china
collector be careful about using that antique platter for sliced
tomatoes. Older china glazes often contain lead, copper, and a
host of other nasties of which uranium salts are far from the
worst. (There is a type of old yellow-green glass which contain a
significant amount of uranium salts, however, since they are
vitrified, it is well contained and not a risk.)
    And, yeah, the seven year old whose idea of a good time was
collecting nuclear bomb glass from the Trinity site, was
obviously born to be a physicist...


Sterling K. Webb
Received on Tue 28 May 2002 11:01:26 PM PDT