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Show ___ Sunday, April 23, 2006 ERALD WAIST: # Making trinitite — recent Western lore fallstoresearch — the closest edition to the 60th anniversary of the bomb — is 2ue Major Holmes a condensed version of their a findings LBUQUERQUE, N.M Their yield calculations are — It wasa rainof mol- within those published for years ten sandin the desert Trinitite — the smooth jade green glass formed andtheir temperature calcula- tion “compares favorably” with that published by the Atomic by the world’s first atomic eee Commission, they wri Strickfaden calculated the bombtest 60 years agoat Trinity Site — wasn't formed the wayit has been explained for years, according to two scientists whose hobbyis studying fireball’s temperature at 8,430 degrees Kelvin — more than 14,000 degrees Fahrenheit. sand fromanthills. Thefirst atomic detonation The trinitite beads that the twofound “of extremeinter- on July 16, 1945,in the far reaches of what is now White Sands Missile Range turned est” generally were2 to 3 mil- limeter spheroids. Some are dirty looking, while others are the sandin the blast area into a that the sandwasheated in- “absolutely stunning looking, like glass beads,” Hermes said. Someare beautifully round, others are teardrops or oblong; someare shaped like tiny degrees Fahrenheit, meltingit. But that’s not what happened, say Los Alamos National Labo- into physics,”he said. Trinitite isn't unique - glassy, somewhat radioactive substance that became known as trinitite The story for decades was stantaneously to nearly 5,000 dumbbells. “It’sa fascinat messide trip fact. it can be faked ae easily, said Strickfaden. The pair heated some “veryarbitrary” sand with an oxyhydrogen torch and produced a substance This photographtaken six miles fromtheblast site, July 16, 1945, shows the mushroom cloud rising up off the desert at the Trinity Test Site in Alamogordo, N. M. Thisfirst atomicdetonation in the far reaches of what is nowWhite SandsMissile Range, turned ratory chemist Robert Hermes andBill Strickfaden, a retired physicist for a Navy contractor the sandintheblast area into a smooth,jade green, somewhatradioactive glass that became knownastrinitite. But trinitite and astudentat the lab years ago. wasn't formedthe way conventional wisdomhassaid it was, according to two scientists. trinitite andlittle beadsof trin- join oneof the tours the missile ground wherethe material “the thing we came the fell was comparatively not that rangeholds twice a year. While the pair said. there, he noticeda lot of anthills up with wasa lot of the radioactive, “Wecanessentially prove and wondered if they contained material that came from this because we found the beads trinitite. Todaytrinitite is considered a lot more radiothe crater got thrown up themselvesare active than thetrinitite on the a historic artifact and people ground,”Strickfaden said. aren't allowed to pick it up. So in the air so hotit Their work was published in after the tour, Hermes contactmeltedin the air.” ed Jim Eckles, a public affairs the fall 2005 edition of Nuclear Accordingto their studyof itite foundin anthills at Trinity Site, the sand wasblasted into the air at superheated tempera- tures. “Independently, the thing we came up with wasa lot of thematerial that came from the crater got thrown up in the air so hot it meltedin theair. Hermessaid. “It rained down as theselittle droplets. The ground itself was so hot Robert Hermes Los Alomos National Laboratory chemist the sand puddled together when the droplets hit. he said. The gist is the puddling came fromthe raining downof Weapons Journal, which actu- ally was printed in February. This newtidbit of nuclear history began with a tourist trip to Trinity Site, the test spot for the Los Alamosscientists who de- fact that trinitite is more radioactive onthetop, glassyside thanonthe bottom, sand-like droplets ... rather than the heat just melting everything on the ground,” Hermes said. Theideais confirmed by the side. The blast threw a huge ra- dioactive cloudintotheair but veloped the bomb during World WarII Hermes, whohadlived in Los Alamosfor 30 years, had never toured thesite and decided to officer for the range for nearly years. Eckles obligingly sent material for the scientific study; later, a small group from Los Alamos wasallowed to gather more. Ecklesbelievesit took so many decadestostudytrin- itite “because nobodygave it a second thought. The common- sensetalk you hear about the that “looks just like it,” Strickfadensaid. Hermesalsosaid trinitite thought aboutit.” beadsare “not unlike what happensin volcanoeslike in Hawaii,” which also produce glassybeads,although how sand,it washot, it melted and turnedto glass. Nobodyhad The new theory“explains away someproblems with the old kind of common-senselook atit,”he said. they form is entirely different Strickfaden said such beads HermesandStrickfadensaid in their paper they wanted to use the propertiesoftrinitite to back-calculatethe yield of the bomb,the temperature and durationofits fireball and the spread of material ejected by also form in nonnuclear explosions. Thepair did their research on theside, andit was not funded bythe lab. theblast. But their studyalso suggestedtrinitite was deposited by a rain of molten droplets and puddling from the heat. 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