Latest Issue of Science News   Atomic ant sand  Magazine issue: 
Sponsor Message   Removing Trinitite from the site is a federal
crime. But Hermes was fascinated by the strange material and
wanted to figure out how the little bits formed in the heart of
an atomic blast. So he hatched a scheme. He returned to his
office at Los Alamos National Laboratory, called up officials at
the U.S. Army’s White Sands Missile Range (home to Trinity) and
asked for a box of ant sand. Ants, he knew, build their mounds
from mineral grains gathered up to 15 meters from their homes.
“I thought if I could get some ant sand, maybe I’d find at least
a vial of little Trinitite pieces collected from around the
site,” says Hermes.  When the sand arrived in the mail, Hermes
and a geology club friend did indeed discover beads of
Trinitite. The pieces were surprisingly spherical, which turned
out to be the key to piecing together how the glass formed.
Waves of heat rippling outward from the plutonium bomb didn’t
just sear the sand into