ed and much of the Tri

nitite w

as taken away by the Atomic En
ergy C ommission. To the west of the mon
ument is a low st

ructure which is protecting an original portion of the crater area .. This Carl Rudder photo shows an unidentified soldier at ground zero. He is inspecting one of the footings from the 100-foot tower. In 2004 members of the missile range's Public Affairs Off

ice began assisting Los Alamos National Lab scientists Robert Hermes and William Strickfaden in a fresh look at Trini are ongoing in the laboratories each year. These projects make use of the laboratories' state-of-the-art equipment, including Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), Fourier Transform Attenuated Total Reflectance Infrared spectroscopy (FTIR-ATR), an Agilent Gas Chromatograph Mass Spectrometer (GC-MS) with an autosampler and other equipment designed to provide information with a high level of accuracy and precision.

tite and how it was formed. The two published the results of their inve

• stigation in the Fall 2005 issue of "Nuclear Weapons Journal." Th
  e two scientists were puzzled by spheroids within pieces of Trinitite. The spheroids looked like little droplets and suggested that instead of being baked below the
• explosion like a giant trinitite brulee, the desert san
  d was first scooped up into the fireball. Inside the fireball, the melted sand behaved just as water does in a regular
• cloud: tiny droplets aggregated into bigger droplets tha
  t became too heavy to remain suspended and fell as a rain of molten glass. "Much of the layer was formed not on the ground but by a rain of material injected into the fireball that melted, fell back, and collected on the hot sand to form the observed puddles of Trinitite, especially withi
• n the radius of the hottest part of the
  event," the study concluded. "After falling to the ground, the top surface of the Trinitite layer was still heated somewhat by the fireball and thus developed a smooth surface." "We calculated an average fireball temperature of 8,430 Kelvin," they reported. That's 14,710
• Ion Chromatograph (IC):
  degrees Fahrenheit. The new theory explains the tiny spheres of glass found onsite as drops that cooled and hardened enough to keep their shape when they hit the ground. It also explains why there was Trinitite found on top of the outer edges of the asphalt used around the 100-foot tower and on some objects left in the ground zero area. Soldiers and
• scientists relax in the McDonald water tank. (It's the Schmidt house) The Ge
  orge McDonald ranch house sits within an 85'x85' low stone wall. The house was built in 1913 by Franz Schmidt, a German immigrant. An addition on the north side was constructed in the 1930s by the McDonalds. A display about the Schmidt family is in the house during each open house. The ranch house is a one-story, 1,750 square-foot building. It is built of adobe which was plastered and painted. An ice house is located
• on the west side along with
  an underground cistern which stored rain water running off the roof. At one time the north addition contained a toilet and bathtub which drained into a septic tank northwest of the house. There is a large, divided water storage tank and a Chicago Aeromotor windmill e
• ast of the house. The scientists a
  nd support people used the north tank as a swimming pool during the long hot summer of 1945. South of the windmill are the remains of a bunkhouse and a barn which was part garage. Further to the east
• are corrals and holding pens. The buildings and fixtures east of the house were stabilized to prevent further deterioration. The ranch was abandoned in 1942 when the Alamogordo Bombing and Gunnery Rang

Other equipment available:

• e took over the land to use in training World War II bombing crews. The
• house stood empty until the Manhattan Project support personnel ar
• rived in early 1945. Inside the h
• X-ray Fluorescence
• ouse the northeas
• t room (the master bedroom) was designated
• the assembly room. Workbenches and tables were installed. To keep dust and sand out of instruments and

tools, the windows were covered with plastic. Tape was used to fasten the edges of the plastic and to sealIERA and the Playas Training and Resource Center. The Chemistry Laboratories also work closely with The Center for Energetic Materials and Energetic Devices (CEMED) an organization that solves practical problems utilizing the skills and facilities of New Mexico Tech/EMRTC, the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Sandia National Laboratories.

doors and cracks in the walls. The explosion, only two miles away, did not significantly damage the house. Most of the windows were blown out, but the main structure was intact. Years of rain water dripping through holes in the roof d