"Jeff Mayner" wrote in
message
...
U Know Who wrote:
"Vinnie S." wrote in
message

...
On Wed, 23 Mar 2005 23:03:49 GMT, "U Know
Who"
wrote:
Several people lost their lives here today.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7277890/

Dear God. Years ago, there was a legendary
huge explosion at a Texas
waterfront
plant. I can't recall the name. A ton of
people died. Was this the
same city?

Vinnie S.

Yes, it was. It was when 2 ships blew up in
the harbor in 1947.

Didn't they have fertalizer on board?

It was specifically Ammonium Nitrate. Ammonium
Nitrate is used as the main component in some
fertilizer products for farm use. I have a picture
in an old chemistry book of mine that shows a
locomotive blown off its tracks at least a mile
from the explosion site. That should give you an
idea of the force and size of the explosion.

Ammonium Nitrate is classified as a high explosive
but requires either a great deal of heat (ANFO -
Ammonium Nitrate Fuel Oil) or something like a
blasting cap to set it off. In the sixties I
believe several student radical groups used a
version of the ANFO concept to do a few bombings.
Ammonium Nitrate under low heat however will cause
it to decompose in to water vapor and nitrous
oxide (laughing gas).

73's de,

Leland C. Scott
KC8LDO

ARRL member
NCI member

"You ask what Morse Code is good for? I'll tell
you. Morse
Code is used exclusively by Electronics Based life
forms to
communicate amongst themselves using advanced
Organic
Digital Signal Processors, running state of the
art Artificial
Intelligence Software, to perform the highly
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transmit encryption, receive decryption and error
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functions."