Trinitite — Red, Black & Green Variant — Trinity Test Site, New Mexico, USA, July 16, 1945

Standard trinitite is rare. What you are looking at is something else entirely.

Trinitite is the glassy material fused from desert sand by the detonation of the first nuclear weapon — the Trinity device — at Alamogordo, New Mexico on July 16, 1945. The standard green glass, formed from the silica-rich desert surface under temperatures exceeding those found at the surface of the sun, is itself a significant historical artifact. Collecting it from the test site has been prohibited since 1987, and the supply in circulation is strictly finite and diminishing.

Red trinitite is rare — its colour derived from iron and copper from the device infrastructure and instrumentation cables that vaporized at ground zero and were incorporated into the melt as it solidified. Black trinitite is rarer still, containing higher concentrations of material from the device itself, including trinitite with measurably elevated concentrations of unfissioned plutonium. Green-black-red tricolour material on a single specimen represents the convergence of multiple incorporation zones and is among the most visually striking and mineralogically complex trinitite known to exist.

This specimen fluoresces under shortwave UV — a characteristic consistent with authentic trinitite and attributable to the uranium and other activator species incorporated into the glass matrix during formation. Provenance and authenticity are established; the combination of all three colour variants in a single authenticated piece is exceptional by any measure.

A singular artifact of 20th century history. There will not be more available and there is already an extremely limited if any supply on the market. As this is only one of several such specimens in my collection, there will not be any price discounts on this piece as I am more than happy to keep it in the collection.

Approx. specimen weight: 1.28 grams

Approx. specimen size: 25mm x 15mm x 5mm

Specimen comes mounted in a protective membrane storage case.