[meteorite-list] TRINITITE "Who is Dr. LaPaz"

From: Galactic Stone & Ironworks <meteoritemike_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat, 27 Feb 2010 09:39:07 -0500
Message-ID: <e51421551002270639t15f73c1cvb63fea6bf94e2a61_at_mail.gmail.com>

Hi Sterling and List,

Yes, your home smoke detector contains material that is far more
radioactive than trinitite. Trinitite is an alpha emitter, but a very
weak one. Handling it is OK, within reason. Don't ingest it or allow
it to enter the mucus membranes or an open cut. I generally keep mine
sealed behind glass, but I do have to handle it to weigh, prepare, and
sell specimens. It hasn't killed me yet and I have not developed any
superpowers.

Depending how close you hold the probe next to a sample during
testing, it will register less than 100 milliroentgens. Some pieces
are hotter than others, but hot is relative here, since the worst
components have degraded into less-harmful decay products. If
trinitite was a meteorite, it would be considered quite "weathered" by
now.

Best regards,

MikeG
www.galactic-stone.com




On 2/27/10, Sterling K. Webb <sterling_k_webb at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> Shawn, James, List,
>
> While it is radiologically safe to possess and
> display trinitite after this interval, handling
> it could conceivably be unwise, depending
> on the nature of the sample, the degree of
> vitrification and the physical integrity of the
> sample. The danger is that of a small particle
> (even very small) getting detached and ending
> up in your body, breathed in, or eaten, or...
> One would not want to run any risk of acquiring
> even a small amount of an alpha emitter than
> might become incorporated in your tissues.
> A low risk, possibly, but a low risk of a high
> risk event.
>
> I have a quantity of trinitite that I personally
> collected in 1949. At that time, it was capable
> of producing a good "buzz" in a primitive tube
> circuit Geiger-Mueller counter. In the late 1950's,
> it made only a mild buzz, and by the 1960's, no
> buzz. It was not as active as other samples I had,
> however, like a good lump of pitchblende, which
> was always noisier than the trinitite. By contrast,
> by the early Sixties, when the trinitite wouldn't
> raise a blip over background, the pitchblende
> activity was unchanged (as it will be for the next
> billion years or so).
>
> Nevertheless, I put the trinitite in a sealed but
> see-through container at that time (1960's) and
> there it stays. I did get rid of my radium samples,
> though, in an interval of sanity. The pitchblende
> and other ores are all in sealed jars. As for these
> exposures, anyone who was a child in the period
> of open-air nuclear bomb testing was exposed to
> a far greater hazard than that of owning (or handling)
> a piece of trinitite.
>
> See this testing:
> http://beckerexhibits.wustl.edu/dental/articles/babytooth.html
> and these results:
> http://www.physorg.com/news175368568.html
>
> Paradoxically, I handled the trinitite freely back
> when it was, well, a little "warm" and put it safely
> away about the time it had "cooled off." It's funny
> the way human logic works.
>
> The nothing-ever-happened-to-me argument is not
> a valid one in evaluating risks. When I was a school
> boy, I used to run into the show store at every chance
> and stick my feet into the fluoroscope they used to
> check the "fit" of a shoe, just so I could look at my
> skeletal toe bones wiggling. A public X-ray machine
> in a shoe store was a colossally stupid thing to have,
> but X-raying your feet as often as you could is pretty
> dumb, too. The fact that I seem to have had no harm
> as a result doesn't mean it was a harmless thing to do,
> but only that I was (am?) a lucky person.
>
> Trinitite is almost unique (and we hope it stays that
> way) since a combat nuclear weapon would never be
> (has never been) detonated at ground level. By all
> means, hold the trinitite in your open palm, then take
> a photo of it resting there, then put the trinitite away
> in a nice display box. Write on the back of the photo,
> "Here's me holding a piece of one of the paving bricks
> from downtown Hell."
>
>
> Sterling K. Webb
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "James Balister" <balisterjames at att.net>
> To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
> Sent: Saturday, February 27, 2010 1:31 AM
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] "Who is Dr. LaPaz"
>
>
> I have been touching my trinitite since 1961 and I still have all my
> hair!
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
>> From: "photophlow at yahoo.com" <photophlow at yahoo.com>
>> To: James Balister <balisterjames at att.net>
>> Sent: Sat, February 27, 2010 1:29:04 AM
>> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] "Who is Dr. LaPaz"
>>
>> Note: Forwarded message is attached.
>
> So i shouldnt touch it with my
>> bare hands? Its a small piece.... The seller said i would be ok if i
>> didnt eat
>> it. I am to young to die lol.
>
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-- 
------------------------------------------------------------
Mike Gilmer - Galactic Stone & Ironworks Meteorites
http://www.galactic-stone.com
http://www.facebook.com/galacticstone
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Received on Sat 27 Feb 2010 09:39:07 AM PST