Trinitite
Trinitite, also known as atomsite or Alamogordo glass, is the glassy residue left on the desert floor after the plutonium-based Trinity nuclear bomb test on July 16, 1945, near Alamogordo, New Mexico. The glass is primarily composed of arkosic sand composed of quartz grains and feldspar (both microcline and smaller amount of plagioclase with small amount of calcite, hornblende and augite in a matrix of sandy clay) that was melted by the atomic blast. It was first academically described in ''American Mineralogist'' in 1948.It is usually a light green, although red trinitite was also found in one section of the blast site, and rare pieces of black trinitite formed. It is mildly radioactive but safe to handle. Pieces of the material remain at the Trinity site as of 2018, although most of it was bulldozed and buried by the United States Atomic Energy Commission in 1953. Provided by Wikipedia
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1by Ted E. Bunch, Malcolm A. LeCompte, A. Victor Adedeji, James H. Wittke, T. David Burleigh, Robert E. Hermes, Charles Mooney, Dale Batchelor, Wendy S. Wolbach, Joel Kathan, Gunther Kletetschka, Mark C. L. Patterson, Edward C. Swindel, Timothy Witwer, George A. Howard, Siddhartha Mitra, Christopher R. Moore, Kurt Langworthy, James P. Kennett, Allen West, Phillip J. SilviaGet full text
Published 2021-09-01
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