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Post by auplater on May 9, 2011 20:09:13 GMT -5
Radioactive section of crystals from Crabtree Note the brown radiation ring around the xtallized section   Close up..ok, not the best micro-photography, but I'm trying...  It's in a section of white quartzite with the redish opague garnets... backround in my living room measures ~10 - 15 cpm I figure either microlite or samarskite for the black grains,but the white feldspar-like areas inside the ring are more radioactive than the dark areas... gamma as well as beta (shield on geiger tube does not eliminate all radiation) Any other ideas from the Crabtree experts??? see y'all next field trip!! John L. |
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Post by kap on May 10, 2011 8:43:26 GMT -5
That explains a lot  |
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Post by bammer on May 10, 2011 13:52:34 GMT -5
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Post by Ryan on May 10, 2011 14:53:11 GMT -5
I do remember that post! And Ive grown two new fingers and a third eye since then! Great for playing guitar or piano, bad for flirting with the ladies....  |
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Post by scintillator4u on May 10, 2011 15:18:16 GMT -5
Hey.. This is Tom Leary chiming in... There are Small but beautiful Uran-Microlites, Alanites (or well formed Samarskites) and Monazites from Sinkhole. They are very small but nice.
The Microlites are best, They occur sparingly with the Garnets. Break up some Garnet Matrix and look for the greenish brown spots up to 1/4 inch across. They look just like green Garnets but tend toward octahedral habit.
The alanite/Samarskite is in small elongate crystals up to 1/4 inch. They are like little blades of brown if unbroken or shiny glossy black if fractured.
Happy Hunting! Tom
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Post by auplater on May 10, 2011 16:42:15 GMT -5
Some of my "other" "spic-ey" rocks probably samarskite and/or microlite xtal from Amelia ~1960... geiger is on X10 setting, so maybe 350 dpm   moving up the scale, here's a Washington State autunite (or perhaps meta-autunite) xtal from 1965... geiger is on X100 scale, so probably 5000 dpm or about 50 microseiverts/hour, so about 20 hrs.of this stuff would be 1 yearly "safe" dose   I've got some "gummite" (?) type dull gray green sandy looking stuff in a perky box, but it's too hot to play with much, as well as a piece of what looks to be autunite on felspar/mica suspiciously like Ray mine from 30 years ago, also pretty hot, sitting in a plastic pickle jar...   John L. |
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Post by Ryan on May 11, 2011 0:04:30 GMT -5
Anyone care to elaborate on what mr/hr and C/M stand for? Millirads/Hour? No, yes? This geiger counter looks very similar to the one I used in the post Bammer alluded to at our local Fire Dept. Itd sure help if I knew what I was looking at when I scan my Spruce Pine oddities. I dont want to be in the dark if I have a little Chrenobyl in my mineral cabinet. Its within 5 feet of where I sleep... |
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Post by auplater on May 11, 2011 7:45:22 GMT -5
Anyone care to elaborate on what mr/hr and C/M stand for? Millirads/Hour? No, yes? This geiger counter looks very similar to the one I used in the post Bammer alluded to at our local Fire Dept. Itd sure help if I knew what I was looking at when I scan my Spruce Pine oddities. I dont want to be in the dark if I have a little Chrenobyl in my mineral cabinet. Its within 5 feet of where I sleep... Hi Ryan... mr/hr is milliroentgens/hour Radiation units are nothing if not confusing. The easiest is the raw data, C/M is simply counts per minute, related to a becquerel, which is the same as disintegrations (detected) per minute/unit mass. Then you get into RADs (Radiation Absorbed Dose), REMs,which are (rads/hour) * Q, or quality factor which accounts for the different types of radiation i.e., alphas high Q, gammas lower Q because they go through you rather than stopping and loosing all their energy in your tissue (roentgen equivalent man), Roentgen (gamma or xray ionizations-in-air), Seiverts,Curies, Grays, Becquerels etc... Thay're all inter-related, but often in seemingly obtuse fashion until you stare at the cross conversions and do some unit/dimensional analysis Geez... it's kinda like particle physics, eh???   Seiverts and REMs (and their fractional counterparts, milli, micro, atta, etc.) are units to describe how much radiation is absorbed from exposure, and take into account the differences between alpha particles, beta particles, XRAYS, Gamma Rays, microwaves, UV, and the types and quantity of damage they do to tissue. Rather than go on and on trying to sound like some sort of expert, here are some good summary links on the subject... www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/terms.htmwww.physics.isu.edu/radinf/risk.htmSee you next rock trip John L. Decided to vent some radon and photograph the suspected ray mine kryptonite...  ;D ... looks to be ~8500 c/m or about 18 mrem/hour... and it's a biscotti jar, not a pickle jar.. hehe guess if I leave it in there long enough all the uranium produced radon will decay to lead and the container will become self-shielding, eh?... lol a few billion years maybe??    |
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Post by Ryan on May 12, 2011 1:37:05 GMT -5
looks to be ~8500 c/m or about 18 mrem/hour... and it's a biscotti jar, not a pickle jar.. hehe guess if I leave it in there long enough all the uranium produced radon will decay to lead and the container will become self-shielding, eh?... lol a few billion years maybe?? Wow! Thats quite a reading. I have boxes and boxes of Ray, Sinkhole, Crabtree and other spoil lying around all over. I need to go get that geiger counter and scan my piles. I could be nuking myself unknowingly. I have been going through rocks lately and finding some things I cannot identify. I think I have a Monazite xl on some kyanite from Mas Celo as well. Dang.. Anyways, is the biscotti jar actually shielding some sort of low energy emission or just a container? I have a nice sized Uranophane covered feldspar chunk that Id love to display but I worry about getting zapped. Is there a container I could make to shield myself or would it need to be lead with a triple pane shielded window? I am really ignorant to radiation values and minerals and need to learn some of this stuff. Not only is it interesting but Im also a pro-self-preservation kind of guy... ;D |
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Post by arappaho on May 12, 2011 6:41:04 GMT -5
Yes, John, thanks for the post and pics. Very helpful.
I'm going to have to get the local club to purchase a geiger counter!
Joe
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Post by rockshine on May 12, 2011 20:31:26 GMT -5
Ryan, I think this is the first time you have admitted publicly that you ever sleep!
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Post by Ryan on May 15, 2011 23:58:32 GMT -5
Uh...er...thats what YOU would call it. My "sleep" is done hanging upsidown in a cave somewhere. I am conscious, just in a low energy state. Have to do it a lot when I dont feed on people...er.. or...EAT. I meant to say eat with people. I enjoy company....Come alone
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;D ... 