Optical properties of glass from Alamogordo, New Mexico

Abstract

Specimens of glass resulting from the explosion of the experimental atomic bomb at Alamogordo, New Mexico, have, by various means' come into the hands of numerous institutions and collectors. Notwithstanding this availability, no studies of the material have been published, although a mere description of its physical character would have no bearing on atomic problems. Samples of the glass were collected by C..A. Anderson of the Geological Survey with the permission of Major General Leslie R. Groves, Commanding General for the Manhattan District. The results of a brief study of this glass, made in the laboratories of the U. S. Geological Survey, will no doubt be of interest to mineralogists and petrologists. The glass, in general, formed alayer 1 to 2 centimeters thick, with the upper surface marked by a very thin sprinkling of dust which fell upon it while it was still molten. At the bottom is a thicker fiIm of partly fused material, which grades into the soil from which it was derived. The color of the glass is a pale bottle green, and the material is extremely vesicular' with the size of the bubbles ranging to nearly the full thickness of the specimen. Figure 1 shows photomicrographs of typical specimens of the