4 ms·
It sounds like typical sloppy journalism, CHinese whispers if you will. What might have happened is this: monazite contains rare earth elements, thorium, small
by HarryHirsch 4y ago
It sounds like typical sloppy journalism, CHinese whispers if you will. What might have happened is this: monazite contains rare earth elements, thorium, small amounts of uranium and trace radium from radioactive decay. Once you have separated the rare earths and thorium you are left with the really good stuff, especially Ra-226. It's an alpha emitter with a halflife of 1600 years, it's no joke at all. An establishment unaware of the radiation risks contamination at Marie Curie level.
- acidburnNSA 4y agoThese dose rates are many orders of magnitude less than "Marie Curie level"
- HarryHirsch 4y agoIt's stuff from undergraduate chemistry. I don't remember which fraction the radium ends up in, but the activity gets concentrated by many orders of magnitude. The problem with alpha emitters is always fine dust that settles in the lungs.