Palladium (Pd) was not called out on any list before.
But by my eye, there seems to be more of it than some of the things that were called out?

Platinum wasn't found apparently?

It's surprising that they even tested for Palladium..or maybe it just matched and called itself out.

It's in the Macrone 500 series
Not in the Macrone 600 series
Not in the MA-16-550-Summary01 or Summary02

I misspoke before saying "all the files" ...Apparently just the Macrone 500 series file.

I really mistrust these files. All the talk about Ti and no Ti in the Macrone files either.

Palladium is too rare and expensive I think to be as common as you suggest.

Weird how it's produced by nuclear fission, but unlikely to get it on your tie from that

I was thinking about pollution from the Hanford site in WA

But mostly, on the whole, the data files don't make sense to me. The combination of elements in particles doesn't make sense.

Palladium is too rare and expensive I think to be as common as you suggest.

Weird how it's produced by nuclear fission, but unlikely to get it on your tie from that

I was thinking about pollution from the Hanford site in WA

But mostly, on the whole, the data files don't make sense to me. The combination of elements in particles doesn't make sense.

it was used in electrical contacts, small quantities but ubiquitous

Early Use of Palladium in Connector Contacts

The use of palladium was small in the 1960s, the main application being in a British Post Office prototype system when 3,000 to 4,000 troy ounces a year were used for contacts electroplated directly on the edges of printed circuit boards (4).

Although it was recognised that palladium might have some technical disadvantages in being less noble than gold, a compensating factor was the better compatibility of palladium plating solutions with board materials by comparison with common gold plating solutions of the time.
Also, its resistance to sliding wear from contact engagement and separation was better than that of a gold electrodeposit against which it was compared (4). Experience with the system of gold alloy contact connectors mated to palladium edge plated boards was satisfactory (5).

During the 1960s studies of palladium electroplating processes and contact properties continued, and in 1972 a major connection system was committed to palladium (6), This consisted of wire contacts soldered in holes in printed circuit boards forming a pin field to which separable connectors with 75gold-25silver alloy contacts were joined. In this product palladium is electrodeposited on nickel wire pins, with the initial annual consumption of 10,000 to 20,000 troy ounces a year (7).

As the price differential between palladium and gold continued to widen during the late 1970s to the present, interest in palladium heightened and commercial connectors with palladium and palladium alloy contacts have begun to appear in the United States, Japan and West Germany, as well as in other countries.

There is interest also in palladium as a gold replacement in switches for low energy applications, an example being a small multi-pole device that can be mounted on printed circuit boards (. This device has 60palladium-40silver contacts that mate to gold plated members.

Palladium is too rare and expensive I think to be as common as you suggest.

Weird how it's produced by nuclear fission, but unlikely to get it on your tie from that

I was thinking about pollution from the Hanford site in WA

But mostly, on the whole, the data files don't make sense to me. The combination of elements in particles doesn't make sense.

When you toss a neutron at Plutonium 239 (or Uranium 235), it will split that atom into two new atoms.  The atomic numbers of those two elements will add up to plutonium's atomic number - nothing is lost except the energy and a neutron.  So if you hit a wall made of a hundred bricks with a wrecking ball and it split the wall into two pieces of brick wall, to use a bad analogy, you'd get one with 57 bricks, the other with 43 bricks.  The next wall you break would have maybe 51 bricks and 49 bricks.  They would always add back up to a hundred, but you could never predict how any given wall (atom) was going to split.

Applying that to atoms, the fission process does not make a bunch of the same atom and concentrate it.  The elements in nuclear waste are random, much like a jar of M&Ms.  What we're looking at is a big cookie baked entirely with yellow M&Ms and wondering if it could have just accidentally come from the factory that way. I say "we" because I worked on this a while back.

Take a look at the McCrone 500 series, second tab.  Line 1856 shows a particle that is 93% Yttrium and 7% Silicon. Line 4770 shows a particle that is 87% Silicon and 13% Yttrium. There are no other elements present in either of these two particles.  What we're looking at is likely a "fender bender" between refined Silicon and refined Yttrium that left paint on each other's quarter panel, so to speak.

I'll take another look at the data later.  Peaked my interested again.

What I'm getting at is that if my memory serves me right it was Cooper who inquired about refueling in either Phoenix or Yuma after he was told they could not make it to Mexico City. Can anyone confirm this?

Cooper apparently said they could make Yuma and Reno

This is per the LV 164-60-139 dictated 11/26/71 in Reno by SA H. E. Hinderliter Jr. and SAC Harold E. Campbell, Jr. (from this forum's FBI files?)

Snip attached, plus snip from pilot transcripts talking about Yuma