Persisting Heat
Fires in the Rubble Persisted for Months
Fires continued to burn far down in the rubble piles for over 100 days after the attack, despite the spraying of water on the rubble for extended periods. 1 The temperatures inside the rubble piles can only be estimated.One source of data is a thermal map of Ground Zero created from infrared data collected by a NASA plane that overflew the site on September 16. The map, created by the U.S. Geological Survey, shows hot spots on the surface of the rubble that were above 700ºCelsius. 2 3 After five days of cooling and despite being sprayed with water, they were still above the melting point of aluminum. The temperatures deep in the rubble pile, and their decline over time, can only be guessed. People living and working around the World Trade Center site, and for considerable distances downwind, had to cope with toxic odors for weeks after the attack.
Reports of Molten Metal
Reports of molten metal in the foundations of the Twin Towers and Building 7 have been noted in the literature of skeptics of the official account of the building collapses. None of the official government reports have commented on these reports, although FEMA's Report contained an appendix disclosing evidence of mysterious high temperature corrosion of steel due to a combination of oxidation and sulfidation.
location F C A 1341 727 B 1034 557 C 1161 627 D 963 517 E 801 427 F 1377 747 G 819 437 H 1017 547
References
1. Ground Zero's fires still burning, NewScientist.com, 12/3/01 [cached]
2. Images of the World Trade Center Site Show Thermal Hot Spots on September 16 and 23, 2001., USGS.gov, 11/2/01 [cached]
3. Images of the World Trade Center Site Show Thermal Hot Spots on September 16 and 23, 2001, USGS.gov, [cached]
******************************************************************
Molten Metal
Workers Reported Molten Metal in Ground Zero Rubble
Reports of molten metal in the foundations of the three World Trade Center skyscrapers are frequently noted in literature of proponents of theories that the buildings were destroyed through controlled demolition. The first such report to be widely publicized was one by American Free Press reporter Christopher Bollyn citing principals of two of the companies contracted to clean up Ground Zero. The president of Tully Construction of Flushing, NY, said he saw pools of "literally molten steel" at Ground Zero. Bollyn also cites Mark Loizeaux, president of Controlled Demolition Inc. (CDI) of Phoenix, MD, as having seen molten steel in the bottoms of elevator shafts "three, four, and five weeks" after the attack.Although reports of molten steel are consistent with the persistent heat at Ground Zero in the months following the attack, we find the American Free Press report suspect for two reasons. First, Tully Construction was one of four companies awarded contracts by New York City's Department of Design and Construction to dispose of the rubble at Ground Zero, and CDI was subcontracted by Tully and was instrumental in devising a plan to recycle the steel. The involvement of Steve Tully and Mark Loizeaux in the destruction of the evidence of the unprecedented collapses would seem to disqualify them as objective reporters of evidence. Interestingly, CDI was also hired to bury the rubble of the Murrah Building in the wake of the Oklahoma City Bombing. That Loizeaux stood trial on charges of illegal campaign contributions casts further doubt on his credibility. 1 A second reason to doubt this molten steel report is the fact that it has been used by Bollyn and others to support the dubious theory that the collapses were caused by bombs in the Towers' basements.
Corroborating Reports
There are reports of molten steel beyond those cited by American Free Press. Most of these have come to light as a result of a research paper by Professor Steven E Jones, which has stimulated interest in the subject of molten steel at Ground Zero. *A report by Waste Age describes New York Sanitation Department workers moving "everything from molten steel beams to human remains." 2 A report on the Government Computer News website quotes Greg Fuchek, vice president of sales for LinksPoint Inc. as stating:In the first few weeks, sometimes when a worker would pull a steel beam from the wreckage, the end of the beam would be dripping molten steel 3 A Messenger-Inquirer report recounts the experiences of Bronx firefighter "Toolie" O'Toole, who stated that some of the beams lifted from deep within the catacombs of Ground Zero by cranes were "dripping from the molten steel." 4 A transcription of an audio interview of Ground Zero chaplain Herb Trimpe contains the following passage:When I was there, of course, the remnants of the towers were still standing. It looked like an enormous junkyard. A scrap metal yard, very similar to that. Except this was still burning. There was still fire. On the cold days, even in January, there was a noticeable difference between the temperature in the middle of the site than there was when you walked two blocks over on Broadway. You could actually feel the heat.
It took me a long time to realize it and I found myself actually one day wanting to get back. Why? Because I felt more comfortable. I realized it was actually warmer on site. The fires burned, up to 2,000 degrees, underground for quite a while before they actually got down to those areas and they cooled off.
I talked to many contractors and they said they actually saw molten metal trapped, beams had just totally had been melted because of the heat. So this was the kind of heat that was going on when those airplanes hit the upper floors. It was just demolishing heat. 5 A report in the Johns Hopkins Public Health Magazine about recovery work in late October quotes Alison Geyh, Ph.D., as stating:Fires are still actively burning and the smoke is very intense. In some pockets now being uncovered, they are finding molten steel. 6 A publication by the National Environmental Health Association quotes Ron Burger, a public health advisor at the National Center for Environmental Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who arrived at Ground Zero on the evening of September 12th. Burger stated:Feeling the heat, seeing the molten steel, the layers upon layers of ash, like lava, it reminded me of Mt. St. Helen’s and the thousands who fled that disaster. 7 An article in The Newsletter of the Structural Engineers Association of Utah describing a speaking appearance by Leslie Robertson (structural engineer responsible for the design of the World Trade Center) contains this passage:A member of the New York Air National Guard's 109th Air Wing was at Ground Zero from September 22 to October 6. He kept a journal on which an article containing the following passage is based.Smoke constantly poured from the peaks. One fireman told us that there was still molten steel at the heart of the towers' remains. Firemen sprayed water to cool the debris down but the heat remained intense enough at the surface to melt their boots. 9 The book American Ground, which contains detailed descriptions of conditions at Ground Zero, contains this passage:... or, in the early days, the streams of molten metal that leaked from the hot cores and flowed down broken walls inside the foundation hole. 10 A review of of the documentary Collateral Damage in the New York Post describes firemen at Ground Zero recalling "heat so intense they encountered rivers of molten steel." 11 ******************************************************************Ground Zero Gases
Months of Emissions of Gases and Fine Particulate Matter
The rubble piles emitted a toxic brew of gases and aerosols with periodic spikes of intensity going on well into 2002. One source of data was a monitoring program by the the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which recorded volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other pollutants at a number of locations in and around Ground Zero. Some of the EPA's data are posted on its website, but the site contains numberous broken links and omissions, prompting researchers to file FOIA petitions to obtain data. 1 A second source of data was a program by the UC Davis DELTA Group (Detection and Evaluation of Long-range Transport of Aerosols) using a rooftop air monitor one mile north-northeast of Ground Zero to record levels of airborne particles. 2 In a 2008 paper published in The Environmentalist, Environmental Anomalies at the World Trade Center: Evidence for Energetic Materials, the independent researchers Kevin R. Ryan, James R. Gourley, and Steven E. Jones provide an in-depth analysis of anomalous features of the data. 3 They note, as do the UC Davis scientists, that the emissions exhibit a pattern of spikes with periodic episodes of very high emissions. The carcinogenic compound benzene registered a level of 180,000 on November 2001 -- hundreds of times higher than levels known to cause adverse health effects in humans. If the episodic pattern of emissions can be explained by flare-ups in the rubble pile during its excavation due to changes in air and fuel supplies to pockets of fire, another feature challenges such explanations: the pattern of emissions of VOCs shows no apparent relationship to the pattern of emissions of fine particulate matter. If rubble fires are the source of the VOCs and the particulate matter, then one would expect that the peaks in the two types of emissions would be strongly correlated.
FIG. 3 from Environmental Anomalies: "EPA maximum daily detection of VOCs in air at GZ, September through November 2001"
FIG. 4 from Environmental Anomalies: "Very fine PM detected in air by EPA near GZ in late 2001"
The authors of Environmental Anomalies advance a hypothesis to explain the lack of correlation between the VOC and paticulate emissions: whereas the particulate matter was produced by the ongoing combustion of conventional building materials and building contents in the rubble piles, the spikes in VOC emissions were produced by the periodic triggering of reactions of energetic materials in the pile -- the same materials used to destroy the buildings.
1,3-Diphenyl Propane
A study by a US EPA research office examining organic gases and particles in the air plumes emanating from Ground Zero noted the presence of 1,3-diphenyl propane (1,3-DPP) -- a compound that had never previously been detected in ambient air sampling. The compound was measured in concentrations that, according to EPA's Eric Swartz, "dwarfed all others", and, according to American Scientist, was "pervasive".
The EPA publication that reported the finding suggested that 1,3-DPP was produced by the decomposition of polyvinyl chloride materials in the debris.4 Swartz offered another hypothesis -- that the compound was a combustion product of polystyrene. Both hypotheses beg the question of why this compound was never before observed in sampling of air from other fires of large commercial buildings, given that the EPA has monitored the emissions of many such events. Environmental Anomalies notes a series of other problems with these hypotheses:However, the sources Swartz uses to support 1,3-DPP as a combustion product of polystyrene are not studies of polystyrene combustion, but of gases released in the long-term degradation of enclosed polystyrene food product packaging.Other studies have shown trace amounts of 1,3-DPP as a secondary product of polystyrene combustion or thermolysis. But such studies suggest that 1,3-DPP may only form in negligible quantities and under certain conditions (Boettner et al. 1973 ; McCaffrey et al. 1996 ). In such experiments, the major product of the combustion or thermolysis of polystyrene, far outweighing others, is the monomer styrene. This leads us to the fact that, although styrene was a species of interest at 290 Broadway during the same time period as was 1,3-DPP, styrene detections were not reported in the FOIA provided data (EPA 2004 ). Therefore, it appears that Swartz’ first suggested hypothesis, that 1,3-DPP resulted from combustion of polystyrene, is not probable.The possibility that 1,3-DPP was off-gassed as a result of the physical destruction of debris at GZ, as in Swartz’ second hypothesis, seems possible. But it is one thing to suggest that 1,3-DPP was “ encapsulated in large volumes of plastics in the buildings” and another thing to state in what exact materials this rare compound was encapsulated. Consumer plastics do not typically have large amounts of unusual organic compounds just simply “encapsulated” within them.The authors of Environmental Anomalies go on to examine a more plausible explanation for the high levels of 1,3-DPP: that the gas was a product of the combustion of energetic nanocomposites. The paper provides a detailed hypotheses of the chemical reactions involved.
EPA on Ground Zero Metal Aerosols
Despite gathering evidence of toxic emissions, the EPA aggravated the public health disaster with its false assurances that the air was safe to breathe. The EPA's website continues to deny the hazardous effects of Ground Zero gas exposures, although its denials have become more sophisticated over time. Consider these excerpts from a 2002 and 2009 version of the page "Metals in Air",Results as of mid-January, 2002:About a third of these metals were not detected in any air samples. EPA detected fourteen metals: antimony, arsenic, cadmium, manganese, nickel, aluminum, barium, copper, iron, magnesium, sodium, calcium, vanadium, and zinc.The first five of these metals are hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), also called toxic air pollutants, under the Clean Air Act. Although we detected these metals, their low concentrations mean they pose no potential for significant risk of long-term health problems from the WTC cleanup effort.EPA continues to monitor and analyze these metals in the air surrounding the WTC. We do not, however, expect future results to be substantially different from the samples listed here. Subsequent sample results, however, will continue to be made available here.The new version replaces the blanket denial that the metal vapors were a hazard due to their "low concentration" with a more nuanced denial claiming that the spikes in emissions were too infrequent to be of concern:The following summarizes the results of monitoring for metals in air. Monitoring ended in May 2002.EPA detected twenty-two metals: antimony, arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, lead, manganese, nickel, selenium, aluminum, barium, calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, potassium, silver, sodium, thallium, vanadium, and zinc.The first ten of these metals are hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), also called toxic air pollutants, under the Clean Air Act. Although we detected these metals, they were detected infrequently. When detected they were mostly at low concentrations. The infrequent detections above the screening levels for metals in ambient air mean they did not pose significant risk of long-term health problems to the general public.On the 2009 version of the page, the link titled "Additional details are available" goes to a page declaring "File Not Found". The earlier version linked to a page that discloses that barium was among the ten metals detected most frequently in air sampling. Reports by the USGS also showed very high levels of barium.
Persisting Heat
Fires in the Rubble Persisted for Months
|
Fires continued to burn far down in the rubble piles for over 100 days after the attack, despite the spraying of water on the rubble for extended periods. 1 The temperatures inside the rubble piles can only be estimated.
One source of data is a thermal map of Ground Zero created from infrared data collected by a NASA plane that overflew the site on September 16. The map, created by the U.S. Geological Survey, shows hot spots on the surface of the rubble that were above 700ºCelsius. 2 3 After five days of cooling and despite being sprayed with water, they were still above the melting point of aluminum. The temperatures deep in the rubble pile, and their decline over time, can only be guessed. People living and working around the World Trade Center site, and for considerable distances downwind, had to cope with toxic odors for weeks after the attack.
Reports of Molten Metal
Reports of molten metal in the foundations of the Twin Towers and Building 7 have been noted in the literature of skeptics of the official account of the building collapses. None of the official government reports have commented on these reports, although FEMA's Report contained an appendix disclosing evidence of mysterious high temperature corrosion of steel due to a combination of oxidation and sulfidation.
| |
References
2. Images of the World Trade Center Site Show Thermal Hot Spots on September 16 and 23, 2001., USGS.gov, 11/2/01 [cached]
3. Images of the World Trade Center Site Show Thermal Hot Spots on September 16 and 23, 2001, USGS.gov, [cached]
Molten Metal
Workers Reported Molten Metal in Ground Zero Rubble
Reports of molten metal in the foundations of the three World Trade Center skyscrapers are frequently noted in literature of proponents of theories that the buildings were destroyed through controlled demolition. The first such report to be widely publicized was one by American Free Press reporter Christopher Bollyn citing principals of two of the companies contracted to clean up Ground Zero. The president of Tully Construction of Flushing, NY, said he saw pools of "literally molten steel" at Ground Zero. Bollyn also cites Mark Loizeaux, president of Controlled Demolition Inc. (CDI) of Phoenix, MD, as having seen molten steel in the bottoms of elevator shafts "three, four, and five weeks" after the attack.
Although reports of molten steel are consistent with the persistent heat at Ground Zero in the months following the attack, we find the American Free Press report suspect for two reasons. First, Tully Construction was one of four companies awarded contracts by New York City's Department of Design and Construction to dispose of the rubble at Ground Zero, and CDI was subcontracted by Tully and was instrumental in devising a plan to recycle the steel. The involvement of Steve Tully and Mark Loizeaux in the destruction of the evidence of the unprecedented collapses would seem to disqualify them as objective reporters of evidence. Interestingly, CDI was also hired to bury the rubble of the Murrah Building in the wake of the Oklahoma City Bombing. That Loizeaux stood trial on charges of illegal campaign contributions casts further doubt on his credibility. 1
A second reason to doubt this molten steel report is the fact that it has been used by Bollyn and others to support the dubious theory that the collapses were caused by bombs in the Towers' basements.
Corroborating Reports
There are reports of molten steel beyond those cited by American Free Press. Most of these have come to light as a result of a research paper by Professor Steven E Jones, which has stimulated interest in the subject of molten steel at Ground Zero. *
A report by Waste Age describes New York Sanitation Department workers moving "everything from molten steel beams to human remains." 2
A report on the Government Computer News website quotes Greg Fuchek, vice president of sales for LinksPoint Inc. as stating:
In the first few weeks, sometimes when a worker would pull a steel beam from the wreckage, the end of the beam would be dripping molten steel 3
A Messenger-Inquirer report recounts the experiences of Bronx firefighter "Toolie" O'Toole, who stated that some of the beams lifted from deep within the catacombs of Ground Zero by cranes were "dripping from the molten steel." 4
A transcription of an audio interview of Ground Zero chaplain Herb Trimpe contains the following passage:
When I was there, of course, the remnants of the towers were still standing. It looked like an enormous junkyard. A scrap metal yard, very similar to that. Except this was still burning. There was still fire. On the cold days, even in January, there was a noticeable difference between the temperature in the middle of the site than there was when you walked two blocks over on Broadway. You could actually feel the heat.
It took me a long time to realize it and I found myself actually one day wanting to get back. Why? Because I felt more comfortable. I realized it was actually warmer on site. The fires burned, up to 2,000 degrees, underground for quite a while before they actually got down to those areas and they cooled off.
I talked to many contractors and they said they actually saw molten metal trapped, beams had just totally had been melted because of the heat. So this was the kind of heat that was going on when those airplanes hit the upper floors. It was just demolishing heat. 5
A report in the Johns Hopkins Public Health Magazine about recovery work in late October quotes Alison Geyh, Ph.D., as stating:
Fires are still actively burning and the smoke is very intense. In some pockets now being uncovered, they are finding molten steel. 6
A publication by the National Environmental Health Association quotes Ron Burger, a public health advisor at the National Center for Environmental Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who arrived at Ground Zero on the evening of September 12th. Burger stated:
Feeling the heat, seeing the molten steel, the layers upon layers of ash, like lava, it reminded me of Mt. St. Helen’s and the thousands who fled that disaster. 7
An article in The Newsletter of the Structural Engineers Association of Utah describing a speaking appearance by Leslie Robertson (structural engineer responsible for the design of the World Trade Center) contains this passage:
A member of the New York Air National Guard's 109th Air Wing was at Ground Zero from September 22 to October 6. He kept a journal on which an article containing the following passage is based.
Smoke constantly poured from the peaks. One fireman told us that there was still molten steel at the heart of the towers' remains. Firemen sprayed water to cool the debris down but the heat remained intense enough at the surface to melt their boots. 9
The book American Ground, which contains detailed descriptions of conditions at Ground Zero, contains this passage:
... or, in the early days, the streams of molten metal that leaked from the hot cores and flowed down broken walls inside the foundation hole. 10
A review of of the documentary Collateral Damage in the New York Post describes firemen at Ground Zero recalling "heat so intense they encountered rivers of molten steel." 11
******************************************************************
Ground Zero Gases
Months of Emissions of Gases and Fine Particulate Matter
The rubble piles emitted a toxic brew of gases and aerosols with periodic spikes of intensity going on well into 2002. One source of data was a monitoring program by the the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which recorded volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other pollutants at a number of locations in and around Ground Zero. Some of the EPA's data are posted on its website, but the site contains numberous broken links and omissions, prompting researchers to file FOIA petitions to obtain data. 1
A second source of data was a program by the UC Davis DELTA Group (Detection and Evaluation of Long-range Transport of Aerosols) using a rooftop air monitor one mile north-northeast of Ground Zero to record levels of airborne particles. 2
In a 2008 paper published in The Environmentalist, Environmental Anomalies at the World Trade Center: Evidence for Energetic Materials, the independent researchers Kevin R. Ryan, James R. Gourley, and Steven E. Jones provide an in-depth analysis of anomalous features of the data. 3 They note, as do the UC Davis scientists, that the emissions exhibit a pattern of spikes with periodic episodes of very high emissions. The carcinogenic compound benzene registered a level of 180,000 on November 2001 -- hundreds of times higher than levels known to cause adverse health effects in humans. If the episodic pattern of emissions can be explained by flare-ups in the rubble pile during its excavation due to changes in air and fuel supplies to pockets of fire, another feature challenges such explanations: the pattern of emissions of VOCs shows no apparent relationship to the pattern of emissions of fine particulate matter. If rubble fires are the source of the VOCs and the particulate matter, then one would expect that the peaks in the two types of emissions would be strongly correlated.
|
FIG. 3 from Environmental Anomalies: "EPA maximum daily detection of VOCs in air at GZ, September through November 2001" |
|
FIG. 4 from Environmental Anomalies: "Very fine PM detected in air by EPA near GZ in late 2001" |
The authors of Environmental Anomalies advance a hypothesis to explain the lack of correlation between the VOC and paticulate emissions: whereas the particulate matter was produced by the ongoing combustion of conventional building materials and building contents in the rubble piles, the spikes in VOC emissions were produced by the periodic triggering of reactions of energetic materials in the pile -- the same materials used to destroy the buildings.
1,3-Diphenyl Propane
A study by a US EPA research office examining organic gases and particles in the air plumes emanating from Ground Zero noted the presence of 1,3-diphenyl propane (1,3-DPP) -- a compound that had never previously been detected in ambient air sampling. The compound was measured in concentrations that, according to EPA's Eric Swartz, "dwarfed all others", and, according to American Scientist, was "pervasive".
The EPA publication that reported the finding suggested that 1,3-DPP was produced by the decomposition of polyvinyl chloride materials in the debris.4 Swartz offered another hypothesis -- that the compound was a combustion product of polystyrene. Both hypotheses beg the question of why this compound was never before observed in sampling of air from other fires of large commercial buildings, given that the EPA has monitored the emissions of many such events. Environmental Anomalies notes a series of other problems with these hypotheses:
However, the sources Swartz uses to support 1,3-DPP as a combustion product of polystyrene are not studies of polystyrene combustion, but of gases released in the long-term degradation of enclosed polystyrene food product packaging.
Other studies have shown trace amounts of 1,3-DPP as a secondary product of polystyrene combustion or thermolysis. But such studies suggest that 1,3-DPP may only form in negligible quantities and under certain conditions (Boettner et al. 1973 ; McCaffrey et al. 1996 ). In such experiments, the major product of the combustion or thermolysis of polystyrene, far outweighing others, is the monomer styrene. This leads us to the fact that, although styrene was a species of interest at 290 Broadway during the same time period as was 1,3-DPP, styrene detections were not reported in the FOIA provided data (EPA 2004 ). Therefore, it appears that Swartz’ first suggested hypothesis, that 1,3-DPP resulted from combustion of polystyrene, is not probable.
The possibility that 1,3-DPP was off-gassed as a result of the physical destruction of debris at GZ, as in Swartz’ second hypothesis, seems possible. But it is one thing to suggest that 1,3-DPP was “ encapsulated in large volumes of plastics in the buildings” and another thing to state in what exact materials this rare compound was encapsulated. Consumer plastics do not typically have large amounts of unusual organic compounds just simply “encapsulated” within them.
The authors of Environmental Anomalies go on to examine a more plausible explanation for the high levels of 1,3-DPP: that the gas was a product of the combustion of energetic nanocomposites. The paper provides a detailed hypotheses of the chemical reactions involved.
EPA on Ground Zero Metal Aerosols
Despite gathering evidence of toxic emissions, the EPA aggravated the public health disaster with its false assurances that the air was safe to breathe. The EPA's website continues to deny the hazardous effects of Ground Zero gas exposures, although its denials have become more sophisticated over time. Consider these excerpts from a 2002 and 2009 version of the page "Metals in Air",
Results as of mid-January, 2002:
About a third of these metals were not detected in any air samples. EPA detected fourteen metals: antimony, arsenic, cadmium, manganese, nickel, aluminum, barium, copper, iron, magnesium, sodium, calcium, vanadium, and zinc.
The first five of these metals are hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), also called toxic air pollutants, under the Clean Air Act. Although we detected these metals, their low concentrations mean they pose no potential for significant risk of long-term health problems from the WTC cleanup effort.
EPA continues to monitor and analyze these metals in the air surrounding the WTC. We do not, however, expect future results to be substantially different from the samples listed here. Subsequent sample results, however, will continue to be made available here.
The new version replaces the blanket denial that the metal vapors were a hazard due to their "low concentration" with a more nuanced denial claiming that the spikes in emissions were too infrequent to be of concern:
The following summarizes the results of monitoring for metals in air. Monitoring ended in May 2002.
EPA detected twenty-two metals: antimony, arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, chromium, cobalt, lead, manganese, nickel, selenium, aluminum, barium, calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, potassium, silver, sodium, thallium, vanadium, and zinc.
The first ten of these metals are hazardous air pollutants (HAPs), also called toxic air pollutants, under the Clean Air Act. Although we detected these metals, they were detected infrequently. When detected they were mostly at low concentrations. The infrequent detections above the screening levels for metals in ambient air mean they did not pose significant risk of long-term health problems to the general public.
On the 2009 version of the page, the link titled "Additional details are available" goes to a page declaring "File Not Found". The earlier version linked to a page that discloses that barium was among the ten metals detected most frequently in air sampling. Reports by the USGS also showed very high levels of barium.
******************************************************************
Aluminothermic ResiduesForm and Composition of Dust Particles Indicates Aluminothermics
Scientific studies of dust fallout of the World Trade Center destruction conducted within months of the attack contain a wealth of data about the dust's distribution, physical forms, and chemical composition. Although this data raised a number of interesting questions -- such as how the dust came to contain high levels of iron, aluminum, sulfur, and barium -- it remained mostly unexamined for years. Even FEMA's disclosure of profound corrosive sulfidation of steel members failed to elicit follow-up studies by official bodies, with NIST avoiding the subject entirely. It would take a scientist working without the benefit of a government stipend to provide a plausible hypothesis answering questions about the dust and corroded steel: Steven E. Jones. Iron-Rich SpheresEvidence collected by the US Geological Survey (USGS) showed up in a 2005 report: photographs showing particles with striking spherical symmetry, ranging in diameter from under 100 microns up to about 1.5 millimeters. 1 Another set of reports, prepared for Deutshe Bank in late 2003 also shows micrographs of iron-rich spheres. 2 3 Jones obtained WTC samples from several locations, including an apartment of a witness to the attack located across the street from the South Tower, and found spherules like the ones in the USGS photograph. His analysis showed that the spherules consisted primarily of iron, aluminum, sulfur, and oxygen. 4 I collected iron-rich particles in the dust by pulling a magnet across the outside of a plastic bag containing the dust, pulling upwards to the top the magnetic material and pulling this aside for further analysis. These magnetic particles were, as one might expect, rich in iron. There was a surprising amount of this iron-rich material. Although others have reported the presence of iron-rich particles in the dust, I was surprised to find the abundance of spherical particles in this iron-rich component some of which were considerably larger than previously reported. It was exciting to me to find for the first time iron-rich spheres up to about 1.5 mm in diameter in a 32.1-gram sample of dust.  The iron-rich component of the WTC dust sample was analyzed in some detail by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and x-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (X-EDS). Using the scanning electron microscope, we found that much of the iron-rich dust was in fact composed of roughly spherical particles microspheres [sic]. The presence of metallic microspheres implies that these metals were once molten, so that surface tension pulled the droplets into a roughly spherical shape. Then the molten droplets solidified in air, preserving the information that they were once molten in the spherical shape as well as chemical information. Iron melts at 1538ºC, so the presence of these numerous iron-rich spheres implies a very high temperature. Too hot in fact for the fires in the WTC buildings since jet fuel (kerosene), paper and wood furniture and other office materials cannot reach the temperatures needed to melt iron or steel. 5 Jones searched for prosaic explanations for the metallic spherules and ruled out various scenarios such as their production from remains of the crashed aircraft. What he and fellow researchers found is that the spherules are best explained as a residues of aluminothermic incendiaries -- a conclusion that, like other diverse pieces of evidence, is consistent with a theory that thermite or its variants were involved in the destruction of the Towers.
Residues Consistent With IncendiariesAnalysis of the chemical composition of dust samples provides further evidence of aluminothermic arson. For example, dust samples contained particles with high levels of manganese, zinc, and barium. 6 Barium is a toxic metal used in a number of industrial processes, but unlikely to be present in significant quantities in an office building. It is, however, useful as a catalyst and accelerant of aluminothermic reactions. Zinc, barium and sulfur are all common in military thermites. 7 References 2. Damage Assessment 130 Libergy Street Property, RJ LeeGroup, Inc., 12/2003 3. Signature Assessment 130 Libergy Street Property, RJ LeeGroup, Inc., 12/2003 4. Extremely high temperatures during the World Trade Center destruction, JournalOf911Studies.com, 5. Revisiting 9/11/2001 -- Applying The Scientific Method, Journal of 9/11 Studies, 5/27/07 6. Chemical compositions of the WTC dusts and girder coating materials, USGS.gov, 2001 7. Patent 6766744: Description, dodtechmatch.com, | ||||
|
No comments:
Post a Comment