[ RadSafe ] Uranium Source

[Grimm, Lawrence]

Besides checking your Geology Department,  if you have a Paleontology
Department, you may wish to survey all their fossils.  At Nebraska,
while walking down an aisle of fossil storage racks, I measured about
2.5 mR/hr (with an ion chamber) from one prehistoric creature, and I
found roughly 20% of the all the bones had elevated readings.   As Andy
Karam noted, it all depends on where the bones/fossils come from.  The
irony of the this story - most of the hot bones were from the same area
where Nebraska was trying, and failed, to locate a low level waste site.
Nebraska has a fairly good deposit of uranium in its NW and North
Central areas.   

I don't have the articles, but I remember reading a couple of
Paleontology articles that discussed the issue of uranium in fossils.
We had two fossil workers develop unusual thyroid cancers, and the
concern was that inhalation of radioactive dust and radioactive cutting
particles may have initiated the cancers.  As expected, I didn't find
any activity in their thyroids.  However, I didn't have access to a
whole body counter, so I don't know if they had any elevated uranium
activity elsewhere in their body.  


Larry Grimm, Senior HP 
UCLA EH&S/ Radiation Safety Division 

*	lgrimm at ehs.ucla.edu   
*	Phone: (310) 206-0712   Fax: (310) 205-7076  Cell: (310)
863-5556 
*	On Campus Mail: 501 Westwood Plaza, 4th Floor, MS 951605 
*	Off Campus Mail: UCLA Radiation Safety Div, 501 Westwood Plaza
4th Fl, Box 951605, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1605 
*	If this email is not RSD business, the opinions are mine, not
UCLA's. 
	


-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] On
Behalf Of A Karam
Sent: Thursday, June 22, 2006 8:21 AM
To: Mercado, Don; radsafe at radlab.nl
Subject: RE: [ RadSafe ] Uranium Source

It's worth a shot, but don't get your hopes up too much - it is much
more common for petrified wood to be just petrified wood.  But worth
keeping your fingers crossed!
 
P. Andrew Karam, Ph.D., CHP
Senior Health Physicist
MJW Corporation
pkaram at oraucoc.org
 
People who believe they are ignorant of nothing have neither looked for,
nor stumbled upon, the boundary between what is known and unknown....
Neil deGrasse Tyson, Director, Hayden Planetarium in "In the Beginning",
Natural History Magazine, Sept 2003

________________________________

From: Mercado, Don [mailto:don.mercado at lmco.com]
Sent: Thu 6/22/2006 11:11
To: A Karam; radsafe at radlab.nl
Subject: RE: [ RadSafe ] Uranium Source


	 
	Wow. I found two HUGE chunks of petrified tree on my property
when I bought my house. I'll have to check them for U. THANKS!
	 
	Don

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