JONES new paper:Microspheres and Temperatures

[Myriad]

The paper gives the melting points of the various materials found in microspheres, and then suggests that the fires must have reached those temperatures in order to produce the spheres.

I see two problems with this.

One is, the idea of the "temperature reached by a fire" is vague, and Jones uses typical measurements which are macroscopic in scale. Most measurements of fire "temperature" are of the air layers in an enclosed space above the fire (usually the top layers, which get hottest.) Mean flame temperatures are sometimes also measured or estimated. But flame temperatures aren't uniform. Parts of a wood flame can have temperatures over 1700°C -- or higher in a post-flashover environment where radiation losses to the surroundings are reduced. Normally this is disregarded because it's only within small regions of the flame that such high temperatures are reached, so it doesn't greatly affect the heating of the surroundings, such as the air layers or even a macroscopic object that the flame might be impinging on. But it must be taken into account when the formation of very small particles is at issue. The paper is about microspheres; mean temperatures on a macroscopic scale are not the only relevant temperatures.

The second is that by concluding that the melting points of the materials in the microspheres must have been reached in the environment, Jones is implicitly assuming specific mechanisms of formation of the spheres: either small isolated chips of mixed metals melted into spherical shapes by the heat of their immediate surroundings (undergoing no chemical change in the process), or bulk amounts of mixed metals being melted and then subsequently separated into spherical droplets by mechanical agitation. (He seems to prefer the latter scenario.) But I'm given to understand by experts here that such spheres can also be formed by chemical reactions that occur at temperatures lower than the melting points, and (if I'm understanding correctly; please correct me if I'm wrong) those reactions can be exothermic, self-heating the spheres above the surrounding temperature.

Thus, the paper's contention that the spheres are evidence of ambient temperatures on a macroscopic scale reaching or exceeding the melting points of the metals in the spheres is not supported by the evidence offered.

Respectfully,
Myriad

 

[deep]

Maybe someone can explain to me. How can they state the temperatures required without knowing what processes were involved in creating the spheres?

"Approximate Minimum Temperatures Required"

That's the caption for Table 1 (the table that lists the temperatures). Did you read the paper?

 

[bofors]

Maybe someone can explain to me. How can they state the temperatures required without knowing what processes were involved in creating the spheres?

If do not understand basic science, perhaps you should consider keeping your "debunking" and related nonsense to yourself.

 

[DGM]

"Approximate Minimum Temperatures Required"

That's the caption for Table 1 (the table that lists the temperatures). Did you read the paper?

Yes I did. Do you understand that different processes can effect the melting points of materials? I do.

 

[Swing Dangler]

Interesting

1. Many of you have called for control samples: I submit that this was indeed done. Page 4-Control sample:

iron rich spheres gathered from cutting steel with an oxyacetylene torch. Control sample 2: ordinary building dust as examined in RJ Lee Group, WTC Dust Signature Report, December, 2003,

2.

Apollo20-So how do you explain the Heinz 57 varieties of microspheres?

Correct me if I'm wrong but your comment

Now we all know that SJ believes that thermite was used to bring down the towers. Well I guess that would mean that thermite was placed at strategic locations on the columns. The thermite would burn and generate microspheres of pretty much the same composition.

is a strawman, correct? As no mention of thermite can be found in the paper.
Two, the data that you examined from Jones, were they iron rich? I think that is the point of the paper. What caused the iron to changes states the way that it did. It would be no surprise to find other samples with a variety of chemical properties, etc.

But for the sake of entertainment, your assuming that the placement of the thermite not mentioned in the paper was done at the exact same spots in the three towers. Locations that have the exact same environmental qualities that would result in identical chemical properties. A far stretch in my opinion that bears no impact on the paper.

Ref-Basically, Jones has multiple varietes of microspheres, he chooses to analyze three different spectra in his paper, he then fails to explain why there basically are numerous different sources of microspheres even in his paper, and he also fails to analyze any natural explanations to any of his iron-rich microspheres.

Different sources of microspheres? Two, possibly three actually. Those towers I think fit the term for different sources.

3. Any thoughts on the USGS information that correlates the findings of this latest paper?

4. Did the USGS release the dust samples to independently verified?

 

[SDC]

If do not understand basic science, perhaps you should consider keeping your "debunking" and related nonsense to yourself.

Pots and kettles. You sure are ungracious.

 

[Crazy Chainsaw]

Chainsaw:

Yes, I thought you would be posting on this one!

On the question of the WTC dust containing molybdenum, or "moly" as its known to chemists, I suspect SJ is thinking about this:

Laser Ignition of Nanocomposite Thermites" by J. J. Granier et al. Combustion and Flame 138, 373, (2004).

"Thermite reactions are characterized by large heat release, which make some ideal for ordnance applications. In this study Al and MoO3 (molybdenum trioxide), react to form products:

2Al + MoO3 -> Mo + Al2O3.

Delta(H) = 4705 kJ/kg

"Thermites are traditionally considered a difficult class of pyrotechnic to ignite due to the large thermal stimulus required. This is because ignition is usually achieved by melting of one of the two components followed by a diffusion-controlled reaction. The melting point for bulk aluminum is 660 deg C and MoO3 begins to sublime at 750 deg C."

This is probably why some "bright spark" thought of using MoO3 as the oxidizing agent in thermite formulations.

But if this type of thermite was used, moly should be found in great abundance in the WTC microspheres. So, my question is:

Where has all the moly gone?

I agree 100 percent, Apollo20, the molybdenum should be much move abundant. If it was from thermite-thermate.

It looks like just a natural source,
in fact this morning I have to take some molybdenum and apply it to my tractor, hope it does not melt the front hub from all that heat produced by the thermite reaction.

http://www.schaefferoil.com/238_moly_grease.html

http://www.echodistributing.com/barium_moly.htm

Dr. Jones now has a direct connection to the navy seals.

http://www.sentrysolutions.com/HiSlipkew.shtml

I am sorry Apollo20 I just can not help laughing at Dr. Jones this time. Remember there was fly ash in the concrete mostly aluminum silicates.

Ca2Al2Si3O10(OH) calcium aluminum silicate hydroxide

http://www.gewater.com/handbook/boiler_water_systems/ch_18_Corrosion.jsp

What are the chances that the sample with all the molybdenum was next to a bridge or a road way?

 

[Viper Daimao]

If do not understand basic science, perhaps you should consider keeping your "debunking" and related nonsense to yourself.

but he was "Just Asking Questions"^tm

 

[Heiwa]

http://journalof911studies.com/articles/WTCHighTemp.pdf

This paper seems to raise a lot of the questions I have had recently had.

No mention of therm?te in this one.

So where did they go wrong?

Nowhere! Evidently heating steel by open fire does not produce dust or metal particles of any kind. Heated steel will deform. If it is compressed it will crumple up. But it will not rupture. Anyway, very little steel in WTC1 was heated upp (in the initiation zone). The rest below was of ambient temperature.

Everybody should know that WTC1 volume wise consisted of only 1% steel. Then it was 4% concrete, glass, furniture, etc. And then 95% air. But it was the steel columns and their spandrels that constituted the strength - spread around the walls and in the core as a spider web. There were thousands of welded, bolted and rivetted connections between all these steel parts.

Most of the weight (mass) of WTC1 was concrete in the floors bolted to the columns. This mass, if falling down, could never damage the vertical columns as it was located between the columns. Any falling concrete mass in the floors would simply miss the vertical columns and the spandrels. Anyway, the potential energy of that mass was too little to do any damage to the vertical columns. It could only shear off some small bolted connections between floors/columns.

To rip apart the steel columns and spandrels you need much more energy than potential energy of a concrete mass inside the towers. NIST has never explained how all these 1000's of abrupt ruptures of steel parts took place. It went fast!

Because the metal particles originate from the abrupt ruptures. And as shown in the article the metal particles could only have been formed at very high temperatures. It means, evidently, that the abrupt ruptures of the steel columns occurred at very high temperatures. NIST should explain how. This is the suggestion in the article.

Evidently you also find some other types of ruptures of steel structure in the rubble due to purely mechanical actions, but they are a tiny minority and easy to explain. Such ruptures do not produce dust and steel particles!

Good article. The authorities should read it.

 

[DGM]

If do not understand basic science, perhaps you should consider keeping your "debunking" and related nonsense to yourself.

What I can't ask questions about what I'm unsure of? Go away adults want to discus things.

 

[Myriad]

"Approximate Minimum Temperatures Required"

That's the caption for Table 1 (the table that lists the temperatures). Did you read the paper?

But the question remains: How can Jones state the minimum temperatures required, even approximately, without knowing what processes were involved in creating the spheres?

The answer is, of course, that he cannot. He's assuming a certain process (agitation of buik melted metal) and then concluding that the temperatures to cause that process must have existed. Similarly, if we assume that the spheres were created by ice-skating penguins, we can conclude that the fires must have been freezing cold.

Respectfully,
Myriad

 

[deep]

Thus, the paper's contention that the spheres are evidence of ambient temperatures on a macroscopic scale reaching or exceeding the melting points of the metals in the spheres is not supported by the evidence offered.

The paper makes no such contention. The paper is not only about microspheres - it includes other observations from various sources that also suggest exceedingly high temperatures.

Either way, the conclusion is more or less that NIST completely ignored this evidence, as opposed to acknowledging it and explaining why it happened. The authors suggest a new investigation to find out "why". That's hard to argue with, even from your point of view.

 

[deep]

But the question remains: How can Jones state the minimum temperatures required, even approximately, without knowing what processes were involved in creating the spheres?

The answer is, of course, that he cannot. He's assuming a certain process (agitation of buik melted metal) and then concluding that the temperatures to cause that process must have existed. Similarly, if we assume that the spheres were created by ice-skating penguins, we can conclude that the fires must have been freezing cold.

Please re-read section 4.5 of the paper for a description of how microspheres are most commonly created. The listed temperatures
correspond to that description.

 

[JamesB]

Ref:

This is what SJ says about his new paper over at 911Blogger:

"Given the level of activity with our 9/11 Investigation at this stage -- things are moving quickly now -- the authors decided to go ahead and submit the paper to the Journal of 9/11 Studies, where it was accepted and quickly published following final reviews.
See what you're missing -- Journal of Physics!"

Given that two of the authors of the paper are the editors of JONES, it's no surprise the paper was accepted!

Makes you wonder who the reviewers were......

I did a count earlier, less than 10% of the pro-conspiracy papers at his "journal" are written by science PhDs, who are someone else than the editors of the journal itself. Rather incestous setup.

 

[Gravy]

The paper makes no such contention. The paper is not only about microspheres - it includes other observations from various sources that also suggest exceedingly high temperatures.

Either way, the conclusion is more or less that NIST completely ignored this evidence, as opposed to acknowledging it and explaining why it happened. The authors suggest a new investigation to find out "why". That's hard to argue with, even from your point of view.

NIST ignored what "evidence?" Microspheres of different metals were expected to be found in the dust. They are evidence that things were on fire. Guess what? NIST already knew that.

Reality's a bitch, ain't she?

 

[deep]

Yes I did. Do you understand that different processes can effect the melting points of materials? I do.

The process is described in section 4.5. Either way, the word approximate is the key here. They wouldn't have included that word if they had an exact number.

Regardless, the point is: NIST ignored all of this, despite numerous cues from USGS and FEMA. A new investigation is the only logical choice.

 

[The Almond]

Just to be clear, I would like to list my criticisms of Jones's paper:

1. In section 2 (Methods), the authors fail to specify whether the detector on the SEM is a silicon lithium Si(Li) detector or a silicon drift detector (SDD). This is actually quite important since the SDD has a high instance of coincidence peaking which can cause misidentification of certain elements. Looking at the spectra, it appears to be a Si(Li) detector, but that's an educated guess at best.
2. On page 2, in the section "Results", the author states, "The spherules found in the WTC dust were predominately iron-rich" without supporting his contention with a statistical analysis of the iron content of the particles available for analysis. He might mean that the particles he analyzed were iron rich, but that indicates heavy operator bias in selecting particles.
3. The author makes no mention of the particle correction routine used to determine the composition of the particles. He further makes no indication of standards collected, or of calibrations run to determine what the relative deviation of a standardless particle quant would be. This is an extremely important point. Jones is reporting "approximate" particle compositions to one decimal place, indicating that his analysis has a deviation of +/- 0.1%. It, of course, would be helpful if Jones were to actually report the actual two standard normal deviation, but I think we've already established that such considerations are for real research papers, not Jones's dreck. Anyway, J.T. Armstrong in Electron Probe Quantitation (pp 296) reported 2 standard deviations for particle analysis using conventional ZAF corrections as +/- 55% relative. In the case of the iron composition given as a caption in Figure 3, it should read Fe = 10.7% +/- 5.9%.
4. The caption under figure 4 states "The Fe-S-Al-O signature is striking, nothing like the signature of structural steel." This is a particularly appalling statement intending to somehow imply that all of the iron rich spherules from his "dust sample" had to be from structural steel or gypsum. Similar to what Dr. Greening has already pointed out, we can't simply assume that the only source of iron in the WTC dust was from steel. Nor can we assume that the temperatures necessary to vaporize the individual constituent elements of those spheres is what caused them to form in the first place. I mentioned rice husk ash in an earlier post which has an abundance of iron rich particles despite rather low burning temperatures. Crazy Chainsaw has also provided information regarding the vaporization of molybdenum at temperatures far below those required to vaporize the pure constituent metal.
5. The caption under figure 5 states "The O/Fe ratio of 1.5 suggests that Fe2O3 is present, iron (III) oxide." Regarding my analysis in point 3, Jones can not state with any certainty that the O/Fe ratio is actually 1.5. Furthermore, Jones seems completely unaware that hydrogen atoms are not fluoresced during XEDS. This means that Jones cannot, with any certainty, determine if the particles are Fe2O3 or Fe(OH)2,3,4 or any variant thereof.
6. On page 4, Jones reports the following, "No explanation for the presence of these iron-rich and silicate spheres (which imply very high temperatures along with droplet formation) is given in the published USGS reports." This is further evidence that he simply rejects the possibility that fires caused this ash sample. The USGS report's purpose was not to comment on the source of the iron rich spheres. In fact, I can't imagine why any researcher, when presented with a sample of ash from a building fire would think twice about finding iron.
7. On page 4, Jones reports, "A WTC dust sample acquired at 130 Liberty Street shows a “mean of composition” of “Fe spheres” of 5.87% which is very high compared with “Fe spheres” found in ordinary building dust of only 0.04% [1]." Ladies and Gentlemen, I submit to you that Jones has decided to compare apples to oranges. He has chosen to compare the composition of ordinary building dust to ash from a building fire. And he thinks it's strange. Lunacy.
8. The next several pages operate on the following argument: Because the temperature required to vaporize a pure metal is really high, these spheres cannot form in normal office fires. Of course, this argument is completely useless unless you compare the results to a similar office fire or across a series of office fires. Jones is expecting the scientific community at large to believe that such elements are not found in office fires because he says so.
9. Finally, the appendix notes where Jones got his samples from. I'm sorry, but I honestly can't understand how any legitimate scientist could possibly believe the validity of Jones's source. There is absolutely no reason to believe that Jones's "WTC Dust" samples are from the actual World Trade Center. Suffice it to say that such forensic handling would certainly not be admissible in any court.

Anyway, that's the nuts and bolts of it. Jones has done an excellent job of writing a report that gives the appearance of scientific validity with absolutely no science to back it up. He has utterly neglected standardized analysis methods, ignored forensic evidence gathering techniques, and has based his argument on nothing more than his personal opinion. There is absolutely no reason to accept any of Jones's conclusions or results.

 

[deep]

NIST ignored what "evidence?" Microspheres of different metals were expected to be found in the dust. They are evidence that things were on fire. Guess what? NIST already knew that.

Source, please? Without one, that's nothing more than a post-hoc rationalization.

Nice try, though.

 

[Furcifer]

1. Many of you have called for control samples: I submit that this was indeed done. Page 4-Control sample:

Submission noted and rejected swingy. That's not an appropriate control sample. If you can't figure out why for yourself, then you're really not qualified to make comment on this paper.

Let's face it, this paper is misleading to people who have little understanding of science and want to come to a certain conclusion.

 

[Gravy]

Source, please? Without one, that's nothing more than a post-hoc rationalization.

Nice try, though.

The source is the same paper Jones cites. Oh, he didn't mention that part? I'm shocked.

Considering the high temperatures reached during the destruction of the WTC, the following three types of combustion products would be expected to be present in WTC dust. These products are:

• Vesicular carbonaceous particles primarily from plastics
• Iron-rich spheres from iron-bearing building components or contents
• High temperature aluminosilicate from building materials

...In addition to the spherical iron and aluminosilicate particles, a variety of heavy metal particles including lead, cadmium, vanadium, yttrium, arsenic, bismuth, and barium particles were produced by the pulverizing, melting and/or combustion of the host materials such as solder, computer screens, and paint during the WTC Event. Source (PDF)