Strange crystals found inside wreckage from the first nuclear bomb test

"Scientists called it trinitite. Now researchers have identified a new material within trinitite called a clathratea cagelike chemical lattice that traps other atoms inside it. It's a completely new kind of clathrate crystal—something never seen before in nature or in the products of a nuclear explosion, says Luca Bindi, a geologist at the University of Florence in Italy, who is co-author of a new study detailing the finding."

"During the Trinity blast, sand swept into the ensuing fireball was exposed to temperatures higher than 1,500 degrees Celsius and pressures of several gigapascals—that's tens of thousands of times normal atmospheric pressure and enough to squeeze graphite into diamond. Matter vaporized, mixed and cooled extremely quickly, rearranging into new forms. This all happened in a matter of seconds, so atoms didn't have time to arrange into stable structures, leading to unusual nonequilibrium materials like this one."

"The clathrate was found inside a copper-rich metallic droplet embedded in the trinitite. The clathrate's cage shapes are 12-sided dodecahedrons and 14-sided tetrakaidecahedrons made of silicon atoms, with calcium atoms—and sometimes copper and iron atoms—trapped inside."

The Trinity nuclear test produced trinitite, a glasslike material formed when melted desert sand and vaporized sensor wires cooled rapidly after a plutonium bomb detonation. Researchers identified a previously unknown clathrate material within trinitite. The clathrate forms a cage-like chemical lattice that traps other atoms inside. It was found inside a copper-rich metallic droplet embedded in trinitite. The cage shapes are 12-sided dodecahedrons and 14-sided tetrakaidecahedrons made of silicon atoms, with calcium atoms and sometimes copper and iron atoms trapped inside. The material formed under extreme temperatures above 1,500°C and pressures of several gigapascals, with rapid vaporization, mixing, and cooling in seconds preventing stable atomic arrangement.

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