Radioactive Tinite?

[jpettigrew@halnet.com (Jeff Pettigrew)]

Anyone care to reply to this man?  He's not on Radsafe so make sure you include his address in any replies, ie: chuck@larson.com





>sci.geo.geology #25176 (30 + 172 more)                                     [1]
>From: Chuck Pell <chuck@larson.com>
>[1] Radioactive Tinitite?
>Date: Thu Oct 19 15:16:58 EDT 1995
>Lines: 30
>Mime-Version: 1.0
>Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
>
>In the mid 50's, a local assayer handed out Tinitite samples to myself and
>other kids in my neighborhood. These were green globs of glass created
>during the testing of the Atomic Bomb in Trinity, New Mexico in 1945.
>Trinite existed only at that location, nowhere else in the world. Today
>when tours are given of the Atomic proving grounds, visitors are warned
>not to touch the green glass that still exists at the site. They are told
>that the glass is still mildly radioactive. The majority of the stuff was
>trucked away from the blast site in the early fifties, I guess that is
>when the samples were obtained for sale at rock shops and assayer's offices.
>
>
>My question relates to the possible danger to the handler and keeper of
>the samples. I had a few of the rocks sitting on a shelf in my bedroom
>for a number of years and now I am wondering if they could have still been
>quite hot(radioactively speaking) ten years after the blast. I know that
>when the assayer brought the rock within a few inches of a geiger counter
>probe, the unit started clicking and the needle on the meter went up part
>way.  I was about 8 or 9 years old at the time so I really didn't know
>what was dangerous or not. I thought that the assayer wouldn't hand out
>rocks to kids if they were dangerous. Then again, maybe back in the
>fifties most people didn't really know what was safe and what wasn't
>regarding radioactive materials.
>
>I would appreciate any information on the subject matter.
>
>Thank you!
>
>[ chuck ] Chuck Pell
>====================
>
>End of article 25176 (of 25293) -- what next? [npq]
>

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 Jeffrey S Pettigrew                    Voice: 713.496.8319         
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