Trinitite

Uncommon card · No. 100985

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 made 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 light green, although red trinitite was also found in one section of the blast site, and rare black trinitite was also 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.

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