SHAPE AND COLOR

Particles of many shapes and colors have been identified.
Descriptive
details vary with the investigators and are qualitative only.
Table 1
summarizes the findings for balloon, tower, ground surface, and under-

ground shots at the Nevada Test Site.

Most of the radioactivity is

associated with glassy, fused material, particularly with rounds.
Some
more detail with regard to color is provided in Table 2, which shows the
color distribution of round particles from various types of shots from
the Plumbbob and Teapot series.
Additional data of this type from other
shots and series are available, but these data would not add anything
material and therefore have been omitted.
The data show that there is no clear height-~of-burst dependence of the
color distribution, as expected.
In general, the particles from tower
shots are darker than those from air or balloon shots, probably as a
result of the large amounts of iron and/or soil present.
The color
distribution of the particles from the one underground

(cratering)

shot

mentioned is similar to that of the tower shots, although the sample
renders this conclusion unclear.

DENSITY OF RADIOACTIVE PARTICLES

The particles for which density data have been found are mostly larger
than 100 um, and were selected on the basis of their radioactivity
content.
Their representativeness may be questioned.
The data are tabulated in Table 3.
Whereas the density of airburst
particles is mostly in the 3-4 g/cm? range, the densities measured on
particles from near-surface, surface, and subsurface bursts are smaller,
rarely exceeding 3.0 g/cm3.
Often the densities are even less than the

density of the "host rock," sometimes significantly so.

Even for the

balloon shot, a type closest to an airburst, the particle densities are
not especially high.
This is apparently caused by vesiculation.
Vesiculation is probably also the cause of the large variability of the densities.
It is further noted that the great majority of particles were
larger than 100 um.
We have arranged the table in such a way as to facilitate the detection
of regularities, if any exist:
by type of shot, by substrate, by scaled
height of burst.
There is no apparent dependence of the measured densi-

ties on the scaled height of burst in tower shots over coral or over

alluvium, nor in surface bursts on coral.
Particles from tower shots
over alluvium appear to have somewhat lower densities than those from
tower shots over coral.
This is commensurate with the lower density of

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