Trinitite: Rare, Otherworldly Crystal Forged From the World’s First Nuclear Bomb Test

The oldest known "quasicrystal" made by humans has been discovered at the site of the very first nuclear bomb test in humanity's history.

Trinity Bomb Test

In the early morning of July 16, 1945, a dreadful slice of history was made which changed humanity forever. The US Army conducted the very first successful atomic bomb test, known as the Trinity test, near Alamogordo in the desert of New Mexico.

In an instant, a metal-coated plutonium device called "Gadget" imploded and produced a 38,000-foot (11,500-meter) mushroom cloud into the air. It resulted in an unparalleled release of energy which is equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT.

Before this event, no one had performed a successful nuclear detonation, so the US pursued several designs for a potential nuclear weapon. A near-solid spherical core was constructed where an aluminum shell covered a uranium slug that contained a plutonium sphere. The aluminum shell is surrounded by high explosives, which detonate and start the core compression, triggering the nuclear reaction inside.

Gadget was detonated from the top of a 100-foot (30-meter) tower, and the shockwave from the initial blast was felt from more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) away. The gargantuan fireball also vaporized everything it touched as it reached temperatures of 8,430 degrees Kelvin, which is hotter than the surface of the Sun.

Beneath the location of the explosion, an enormous crater was formed which measures 5 to 8 feet (1.6 to 2.4 meters) deep. The landscape was incredibly scarred and various isotopes and elements were strewn about into the mix.

Forbidden Crystal

The nuclear bomb test was obviously made to destroy, but it turns out that it also created something. The fireball fused the tower and copper with the asphalt and desert sand into green glass, a new mineral which was dubbed as trinitite or Alamogordo glass.

The new material is largely made of silicate oxide embedded with melted feldspar and quartz grain. It also contains other minerals such as augite, calcite, and hornblende. It also features an array of colors, like green, gray and red, which is thought to be due to the various materials in the bomb itself.

Trinitite is a rare form of matter called quasicrystal, which was once thought to be impossible. Quasicrystals are produced in extreme environments which rarely exist on Earth. Similar melted glass materials can only be naturally made through the displays of enormous energy, like meteorites and lightning strikes.

According to geophysicist Terry Wallace of Los Alamos National Laboratory, these minerals require a traumatic event that involves extreme shock, temperature, and pressure. They are not typically seen except in events as striking as a nuclear explosion.

Most crystals contain atoms which are arranged in a lattice structure that repeats in 3D space. This rule is broken by quasicrystals since the pattern in which their atoms are arranged does not repeat.

Trinitite is considered mildly radioactive, although its radiation level is not enough to cause too much concern. Despite the clean-up efforts of the US Atomic Energy Commission in the 1950s, this mineral can still be found at the Trinity site as late as 2018.