Trinitite A-Bomb Glass !!!

Moment zero of the atomic age. "Fat Man" exploded atop a hundred foot tall tower at the Trinity Site, Alamogordo, New Mexico, with the force of 38 MILLION POUNDS of Dynamite! The explosion left an 800 meter diameter crater with a "glistening encrustation of blue-green glass".

For security reasons, the military quickly buried the crater. Not much glass was salvaged early on, as it was significantly radioactive. Now that it has "cooled" to safe levels, it is illegal to collect. Check around on the web. You'll find it offered for $4 to $10/gm. I got a good deal on a small lot, so I'm passing the savings along to you.

So what's this artificial stuff doing on a tektite website?? Huge mysteries remain in the tektite world. A key question has to do with the "fining" or devolatilization of tektite glass. To this day, industry utilizes processes that require many days to achieve volatile reductions similar to tektite glass. But clearly, whatever processes that may have been involved for tektites lasted for a matter of seconds.

Trinitite provides an example of artificial glass produced by the melting of desert sands under extreme, but known, processes. It provides a benchmark for comparison that seems intuitively similar to the extreme conditions of hypervelocity meteorite impact. ---But the resulting glass still falls short of tektite glass!

These fine specimens typically have a smooth glassy top with a bubble cavity or two. Their base is a warty, rough surface of partly fused desert sand. Broken edges display a highly vesiculated interior with sub-spherical bubbles. The overall glass color is pale olive-green. The material is somewhat granulated by cooling fractures.

S0ooo, Just like Irghizites, ONE major force dominates the market, killing the demand-side equation with bulk offerings,

S0oo, just like Irghizites, we went to the seller and asked for all of his remaining "biggest and best". We bought it all. Let them sell the average scraps ad nauseum, but we want to be your source for the best! Here it is----some of the highest quality specimens still in circulation . This is some great stuff, and when it's gone, it's gone. The original (back-filled) crater is totally off limits for collectors of any sort.

Sometimes I hate dealing in super-exotic materials. We want to be your source for quality specimens, but every item we sell is one step closer to our being unable to provide such material! When the limited supply is exhausted, that's it. And at that point, we will no longer have any of the rarities to offer for love or money. Buy now, before we decide to leave all we can to our grandkids!!!

We live in a glorious moment in time. There's this little blip in history when we can all get together all over the world with shared interests. At this point, if there is even a dozen of us on earth that are interested in a particular subject, we can correspond. Never before, and who knows the future--- except that it will certainly be increasingly restricted. . Rock and Roll!!

Click on small images to view larger version. Close new window to return to this page. Sold items current as of 9 February 2012

	MONSTER 202.6 gms, one sawn face. Over 88 mm (3.5") top to bottom thickness!	Was this from the ground zero area in the center of the crater?? I don't know, but it's the biggest and thickest piece I've ever seen anywhere! Other full thickness crusts offered below are as little as 6 mm thick. Sawn surface is not polished. #TrinAA: $350 (Sold)
	18.5 grams, 13.7 mm thick	Very large with nice form and skin character. One of our best offerings ever. #Trin1: $100Sold
	15.9 grams, 15.8 mm thick.	Great representative piece with glassy surface, warty base, and well displayed side views of vesicular interior given the exceptional thickness. #Trin2: $75Sold
	7.0 grams, 11.1 mm thick	Super nice form. This was a nearly complete, stand-alone glass blob with only minor broken edges. Unusual, as most pieces are fragments of extensive crust, bounded on all edges by breaks. #Trin3: $75
	7.7 grams, 10.3 mm thick	The lower left quadrant of this specimen in the photo is an original unbroken edge. Nice surface luster and color. #Trin4: $50
	9.7 grams, 10.4 mm thick	Whoa! Fantastic form, like a piece of puddled wax at the base of a candle. Very exceptional specimen! #Trin5:  Sold
	8.2 grams, 9.4 mm thick	One of our palest green specimens. Appears partly dusted with fine sand that adhered to the surface of the glass. #Trin6: $55
	6.9 grams, 10.3 mm thick	A superb piece giving the sense that one lobe of glass was flung over the top of another at right angles. Nice color and glassy luster! #Trin7: $85Sold
	7.2 grams, 10.5 mm thick	Another nice glossy piece with an undulose profile and about half the perimeter as original unbroken edges. Just enough breaks to show the vesicular interior nicely. #Trin8: $45Sold
	9.1 grams, 10.8 mm thick	A fine display piece with one long broken edge displaying the interior characteristics. Most of the balance of the perimeter is original and unbroken. The prominent bubble that breached the surface extends almost through the full thickness. #Trin9: $55 Sold
	7.4 grams, 9.9 mm thick	Pretty much a stand-alone complete glass blob with only minor broken edge chips. Cool edge bubble. #Trin10: $45Sold
	6.7 grams, 15.5 mm thick.	Unusual thick, ropy piece, reminiscent of pahoehoe lava. Several vesicles have breached the surface. About 80% original unbroken perimeter. Really fine geometry. Much of surface is sand frosted. #Trin11: $75
	8.8 grams, 10.9 mm thick	Nice representative specimen with great color, a glassy surface luster, and about 60% broken edges displaying interior character, 40% rounded unbroken edges. #Trin12: $40Sold
	4.3 grams, 7.7 mm thick	Another nice little puddle, broken along the straight segment at the upper right in the photo. Nice color and luster. #Trin13: $25Sold
	7.7 grams, 9.6 mm thick	Gorgeous specimen. Nice surface topography and about 60% original unbroken edges. Has a clean broken edge on the lower right in the phot which displays the interior nicely. Particularly fine surface gloss. #Trin14: $45 sold
	3.0 grams, 6.8 mm thick	Cool little rivulet of melted glass. Exceptionally thin. Very neat piece! #Trin15: $30sold
	8.9 grams, 14.2 mm thick	Stylized banana slug! This piece has a lot of character. Undulose in most every profile. About 70% natural unbroken edges. Fantastic display specimen. #Trin16: $85sold
	3.4 grams, 8.0 mm thick	A nice, representative small piece with all of the classic characteristices well displayed. #Trin17: $15Sold
	2.6 grams, 7.1 mm thick	A segment of a glass rivulet. About half of surface is dusted with adhering sand. #Trin18: $9Sold
	6.4 grams, 8.4 mm thick	The problem with writing individual descriptions for material carefully selected to be the best of the best is the superlatives get overused and worn out! This is a most extraordinary array of great stuff! This one, again, superb color and gloss. Cool form. About 80% natural unbroken edges! #Trin19: $ 45SOLD
	7.3 grams, 8.3mm thick	Almost complete stand-alone blob of glass, only a centimeter of broken edge (left half of upper left straight segment in photo. Surface partly dusted with adhering sand. #Trin20: $50Sold
	6.5 grams, 8.7mm thick	Another nearly complete single spatter blob! Domed profile. Partly lusterous, partly dusted with adhering sand. #Trin21: $35
	8.2 grams, 10.5 mm thick	Two facets of the triangular edges are breaks, one is original natural puddle edge. Good typical character specimen. #Trin22: $35Sold
	7.3 grams, 8.3mm thick	Essentially complete stand-alone glass spatter! Only minor edge chips, not breaks. Specimens like this must be relatively distal ballistic spatters, not in situ fusion crusts. A fine piece. #Trin23: $60Sold
	7.1 grams, 7.5mm thick	Nice spatter blob. About 75% original unbroken edges. Nice color and luster. Small breached bubble at surface. #Trin24: $45 Sold
	7.3 grams, 9.1mm thick	Similar to above, but about half the surface dusted with adhering sand. #Trin25: $30 Sold
	6.8 grams, 12.3 mm thick	Thick, nearly complete spatter blob. Only 1 cm boken edge, nice form. #Trin26: $35
	9.8 grams, 8.9 mm thick	Given the relatively high weight combined with a thin profile, this is a large specimen. Good, typical piece, with about 50% unbroken edges. #Trin27: $50 Sold
	10.6 gram, 9.6mm thich	A very large, nice example. Good color and luster, lots of vesicles. 80% broken edges with good interior views. #Trin28: $55Sold
	9.8 grams, 10.9mm thick	About 60% dusted with adhering sand, this relatively thick piece provides a good sectional view of the vesiculated interior. #Trin29: $45 Sold
	2.7 grams, 7.2mm thick	Occasionally we see pieces with rusty surface coatings. Here's a little one. #Trin30: $8Sold

We have more, including lower grade (&cost) materials. I'll list them when I can or you can ask. Also have some scrappy stuff that could be used for thin sections or destructive analysis.

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