[meteorite-list] New Paper on Trintite in “Geology Today”

From: Michael Gilmer <meteoritemike_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2011 10:26:39 -0500
Message-ID: <AANLkTinssft06uAAbu7i5yDG6AfU0-yXuhd45HnTBKDi_at_mail.gmail.com>

Hi Paul and List,

I have owned several kilograms of trinitite and I have seen many of
the rare forms.

The crown jewel of my collection was a perfectly-spherical "pearl"
that was brilliant green in color and about the size of a small acorn.
 It is the only one I have found or seen while sorting through
thousands of individual pieces.

I have seen red trinitite and black trinitite. I have also seen
crystalline trinitite. The crystalline trinitite was amazing. It was
a very bright neon-green color with squarish crystals that were
clustered together into a lump. It looked the way I imagined
kryptonite would look.

Black trinitite is fantastically rare - perhaps the rarest of all. I
have only seen one tiny partial fragment of it.

Many pieces of trinitite have tiny flecks or pinpoints of metal
embedded in them. You can see these with a 10x or 20x loupe.

Teardrop trinitite is uncommon, but dumbbells are extremely rare. I
have seen several of the former and none of the latter (not intact at
least).

There are also pieces of trinitite with holes in them. I've seen
several with holes.

Here is a link to a great story about how trinitite arrived on the
private market - http://www.mine-engineer.com/mining/trinity.htm

Thanks for the links to the paper Paul. I'm going to check those out
tonight. :)

Best regards,

MikeG

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On 1/27/11, Paul H. <oxytropidoceras at cox.net> wrote:
> A new summary paper about trinitite was published in late
> 2010 in ?Geology Today.? The paper is:
>
> Eby, N., R. Hermes, N. Charnley, and J. A. Smoliga, 2010a,
> Trinitite?the atomic rock. vol. 26, no. 5, pp. 180?185.
> http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2451.2010.00767.x/abstract
> http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gto.2010.26.issue-5/issuetoc
>
> One conclusion is that much of the surface layer was
> not created by the melting of the ground surface as
> previously thought. Instead, they state that further
> work has shown that much of the trinitite had been
> entrained in the rising cloud of gasses and subsequently
> rained down onto the surface as molten droplets. A lot
> of this material still retains bead and dumbbell shapes
> that were formed as the molten material was
> transported by the gas cloud. They note that a significant
> amount of these beads and dumbbells was blown
> downwind and accumulated over a fairly wide area.
> These beads and dumbells are now found commonly
> concentrated on the surface of anthills and sometimes
> called ?anthill trinitite.?
>
> Among many other things, they found that the red trinitite,
> which color results from the presence of copper, contains
> metallic chondrules that contain iron and lead. They
> conclude that the metallic chondrules ?are melted bits of
> the first atomic bomb and the surrounding support
> structures?history encased in glass.?
>
> Another paper is:
>
> Fahey, A. J., C. J. Zeissler, D. E. Newbury, J. Davis, and R. M.
> Lindstrom, 2010, Postdetonation nuclear debris for attribution.
> Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. vol. 107,
> no. 47, pp. 20207-20212.
> http://www.pnas.org/content/107/47/20207.abstract
>
> Some online material about trinitite are:
>
> Trinitite ? the Atomic Rock by N. Eby and others
> http://faculty.uml.edu/Nelson_Eby/Research/Trinitite/NE_SE%20GSA%20trinitite%20presentation.pdf
>
> Trinitite Varieties (Green, Red, Black & Pearls) by Steven
> L. Kay, Nuclearon.
> http://www.radiochemistry.org/documents/pdf/trinitite_nuclearon_061608.pdf.
>
> Trinitite, Radioactivity of trinitite after 62 years by
> Daniela Pittauerova
> http://www.radioaktivitaet.uni-bremen.de/Seminar/Trinitite.pdf
>
> Eby, N., R. Hermes, N. Charnley, and J. A. Smoliga, 2010b,
> Trinitite ? the Atomic Rock. Geological Society of America
> Abstracts with Programs, Vol. 42, No. 1, p. 77
> http://gsa.confex.com/gsa/2010NE/finalprogram/abstract_169905.htm
>
> Yours,
>
> Paul H.
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Received on Thu 27 Jan 2011 10:26:39 AM PST