WEBVTT - How Nuclear Weapons Testing Created New Minerals

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<v Speaker 1>Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hey, brain Stuff.

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<v Speaker 1>Lorn Bogel bomb here. It was theoretical physicist J. Robert

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<v Speaker 1>Oppenheimer who chose the code named Trinity for his trial

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<v Speaker 1>run of atomic weapons, though he could never remember why.

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<v Speaker 1>As a participant in the Manhattan Project, he oversaw the

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<v Speaker 1>construction of four atomic bombs. By the spring of nineteen

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<v Speaker 1>forty five, the U. S Military had started looking for

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<v Speaker 1>a place to test one of them. Out Sites in California, Colorado,

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<v Speaker 1>and Texas were considered before the Pentagon chose a patch

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<v Speaker 1>of terrain at the White Sands Missile Range in New

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<v Speaker 1>Mexico is the site of the Trinity Project. On July sixteenth,

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<v Speaker 1>ninety five, at five twenty nine a m Mountain time,

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<v Speaker 1>a plutonium bomb known simply as the Gadget was detonated

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<v Speaker 1>at the site. This marked the first deployment of an

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<v Speaker 1>atomic weapon in recorded history. Within a month, the United

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<v Speaker 1>States used two atomic bombs to level both Hiroshima and

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<v Speaker 1>Nagasaki in Japan, helping bring World War two to an

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<v Speaker 1>end and sending a very clear and violent message to

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<v Speaker 1>other world powers. So began the atomic Age. Back in

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<v Speaker 1>New Mexico, scientists discovered that the explosion that had started

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<v Speaker 1>at all left something behind. Nuclear physicist Herbert L. Anderson

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<v Speaker 1>and his driver inspected the Trinity blast site shortly after

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<v Speaker 1>the bomb detonated. Over the radio, he announced that the

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<v Speaker 1>area had turned all green. A layer of small, glassy

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<v Speaker 1>beads covered the crater. Most were all of green in color,

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<v Speaker 1>though some samples were black or reddish in hue. The

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<v Speaker 1>substance is now known as trinotite. Plenty of trinotite was

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<v Speaker 1>still there in September nineteen forty five, when a Time

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<v Speaker 1>magazine report described the crater as a lake of green

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<v Speaker 1>jade shaped like a splashy star. Physicists realized that this

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<v Speaker 1>trinotite was desert sand that had melted down during the

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<v Speaker 1>blast and then resolidified. Our understanding of trinotite has changed recently.

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<v Speaker 1>At first, scientists assumed that the grains of sand that

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<v Speaker 1>turned into this material had melted at ground level, but

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<v Speaker 1>a twenty ten study found that the sand was actually

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<v Speaker 1>pulled up into the heart of the explosion, where high

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<v Speaker 1>temperatures liquefied it. The stuff later rained down, cooled, and

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<v Speaker 1>turned solid. There are no laws against buying or selling

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<v Speaker 1>trinotite samples that have already been collected, but it's now

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<v Speaker 1>illegal to remove this substance from the blast field. You

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<v Speaker 1>will find much of it on site anyway. America's Atomic

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<v Speaker 1>Energy Commission bulldozed over the nuclear test site in nineteen

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<v Speaker 1>fifty three. In the process, a bounty of trinotite was

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<v Speaker 1>buried underground, and buyers beware, there's a lot of phony

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<v Speaker 1>trinotite on the market. Trinotite is indeed radioactive, however, it's

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<v Speaker 1>been deemed basically safe by a health physics survey, so

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<v Speaker 1>the glassy beads were snatched up in huge quantities by

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<v Speaker 1>souvenir hungry visitors to the site. Jewelry created with trinotite

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<v Speaker 1>was even made for the purpose of propaganda. These kinds

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<v Speaker 1>of glassy residues are left behind whenever nuclear weapons go

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<v Speaker 1>off at the ground level. They've been recovered in the

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<v Speaker 1>wake of atomic tests over such places as the Algerian Desert,

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<v Speaker 1>but the name trinotite is typically reserved for specimens found

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<v Speaker 1>at the original Trinity site at the White Sands Missile Range.

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<v Speaker 1>Some scientists prefer to call material found in other parts

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<v Speaker 1>of the world atom site Today's episode was written by

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<v Speaker 1>Mark Mancini and produced by Tyler Clang. For more on

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<v Speaker 1>this and lots of other basically safe topics, visit our

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<v Speaker 1>home planet, how Stuff Works dot com.