Photo by Christopher WheelerDrive out of town down any highway and you'll pass an occasional house dotting the roadside. But most don't have their own names pretending to be a "town" like Bingham, New Mexico, population 2. Just before entering Bingham a sign warns "Watch for Rocks." Rocks indeed!
The Lion's Gate outside the Blanchard Rock ShopThe shop is owned by Allison Nilsen and her partner. As we approached the shop, I noticed a small sticker displayed in the residence portion of the building. White letters on a blue field proudly proclaimed, "BUSH". But the rocks in the hearts of the residents of Bingham weren't my interest this day. I was there for the rocks in their heads. And boy, I was so not disappointed!
First let me say, located about 30 miles in either direction from the nearest town, these two have to have a pioneering spirit. Any anti-social motivations one may suspect as reason for their lives in the middle of nowhere are betrayed by their outgoing spirit. Highly trained and educated, either could be working as geologists for big oil or teaching at university.
But the reason I suspect they are located here in the middle of cultural and social desolation is out of choice, as given in a clue from their website:
"This district is considered one of the "richest" when it comes to the variety of mineral species it produces, which is over 80 different ones. In fact, the mines here have produced a number of world class mineral specimens...."
At any time Bingham's population of two is doubledor tripled by visiting tourists and rockhounds.
In other words, these are people who truly love what they are doing. After a half hour tour of the local geology and the wonderful rocks sampled and explained to us, I had gained a new appreciation for Earth as a living, breathing thing, i.e., for a time I afterwards, I walked a little more lightly upon the Earth. And, once inside the shop, we were treated to a viewing of what was the primo encore presentation of all that had preceded it. It is the reason I choose to highlight Bingham and its rock shop here among those spots that evidence man's influence upon the New Mexican landscape.
HOT ROCKS OF NUCLEAR WINTER?
You see, Bingham is just sixteen miles from Trinity Site where the first known nuclear detonation on Earth took place almost sixty-two years ago. On that site, located on a restricted area of White Sands Missile Range, is erected a small obelisk upon that precise spot.
This obelisk, when compared to many, many others dedicated over the centuries to the rise of civilization, its leaders and their ideals, such as the Egyptian obelisk of Luxor down to our own Washington Monument, make Trinity Site's small stone obelisk seem modest and almost insignificant. That's ironic, in light of the fact it may be the only one ever erected to the fall of civilizations and of mankind itself. Photo by DataCollectorUpon that first atomic detonation, it was discovered the heat from the fireball it created had melted the sands beneath it into a greenish colored glass which came to be known as Trinitite.
As a result, the delightful term "glass parking lot" became part of the Defense Department's vernacular over time. Glass parking lot became the slang used in places like the Pentagon to indicate how the US might respond to foreign aggression, i.e., with nuclear weapons. Such "parking lots" are also a seemingly innocuous description used by simplistic hardline, and hawkish types, most whom have never experienced the true horrors of war, who think mass nuclear annihilation of parts of the world an answer to all of their problematic areas challenging the US policies of global bullying. (But I digress--sorry!)
I've never been to Trinity Site and I don't intend to ever go. I've read about it from those who have. Maybe I should after reading the ease of mind gained by one who did and said afterwards:
"Atomic bombs are a little less scary after you see families posing for pictures with their pets at a former ground zero. There were at least a half dozen dogs with visitors to the atomic bomb blast site."
Gee, I wish I'd felt that growing up instead of the nuclear war we were taught as children to fear so much that we practiced diving under our school desks in preparation to having our eight year old asses fried off. No, instead, the Blanchard Rock Shop saved Mrs. Dada and I the trip to Trinity Site today and every two Saturdays a year hereafter by presenting us with a real "live" sample of Trinitite.
The glass formed from sand melted by an atomicbomb detonation. Photo from Blanchard Rock Shop
Learning that it's illegal to obtain such samples of Trinitite today, I don't remember if I asked how these came to be in possession of the rock shop. If I did ask - which I'm sure I did, I don't remember the answer. But of all the rocks we had examined this day at Blanchard's, this was the eeriest one and I couldn't help looking down in awe at a piece of glass, knowing its remaining half-life far, far exceeds that of my own.
I held a deep respect for it. Like when admiring a gorgeous animal you know at any moment could turn and bite you in the ass.
And then it was time to leave. To drive on to our day's final destination, Socorro, NM. It had been an interesting drive, from the rockets of White Sands, to the natural rock petroglyphs enhanced by man, to Trinitite, the unnatural rocks created by man.
(Dada note: After our encounter with Trinitite, I had pondered these past several years if there might not have been a glass formed by the first atomic bombs used "commercially" on Hiroshima or Nagasaki? And if so, would those glasses formed be called Trinitite in honor of where the first was created, or might they be called Hiroshimatite, or Nagasakitite?
Fortunately, I just recently had a chance encounter with a geologist that forever laid to rest my curiosity. I asked him this very question. He said he didn't know of any such similar geologic formations resulting in said Japanese cities so honored with the first US atomic bombs. I concluded that maybe the reason for that was the bombs, unlike the first that exploded over desert sand, exploded over densely inhabited cities and, unlike sand, human flesh doesn't glassify, it simply vaporizes instead, sadly, leaving no collectible "rocks" or geology.
But having answered my question, I now sleep better at night.)
