[ RadSafe ] Radioactive coffee? .....NORM ?

[Dan W McCarn]

Hi Group:

Just a note - monazite tends to weather out of igneous and metamorphic rocks
to form heavy mineral beach and stream placers because it doesn't tend to
chemically weather as quickly as - say - feldspars. As many of you know,
these heavy mineral placers can accumulate a very substantial amount source
term, especially thorium, and monazites contain significant quantities of
rare earths (Ce, La, Pr, Nd, Th, Y) as a phosphate.  The feldspars including
the K-rich variety readily weather to clays to form laterites in tropical
environments and the soils can contain 4% K. As discussed some months ago,
potash (K) can also be easily derived from wood ash. So, I tend to agree
that the source is probably 40K whether "geogene or anthropogene".

And sorry, my Model 19 is back at Ludlum Instruments being repaired and
recalibrated. The last time I flew with it, the instrument was badly damaged
in transport - apparently taken out the case (hard shell) and dropped some
distance onto a hard surface.  The handle was badly bent.  Has anyone else
had issues with survey meters on commercial aircraft?  I always get a note
that the case was opened and inspected, but this is the first time that I've
had damage.

Dan ii

Dan W McCarn, Geologist
Houston & Albuquerque

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl [mailto:radsafe-bounces at radlab.nl] On Behalf
Of Wes Van Pelt
Sent: Saturday, September 29, 2007 08:50
To: 'RADSAFE'
Subject: RE: [ RadSafe ] Radioactive coffee? .....NORM ?

Radsafers,

With the power of Radsafe, we can get to the bottom of this coffee question.
I ask every Radsafer to get some coffee beans and look for radioactivity
with whatever survey meter or radiological analyzer you have handy.

Here is my 5 minute research experiment using two 978 g cans of ground
coffee (Folgers and Maxwell House).

A. Put a calibrated 1x1 inch NaI scintillation probe with Ludlum ratemeter
between the two cans of coffee.
	Without coffee cans: 9 microR/h
	With coffee cans: 9 microR/h

B. Open one of the cans of coffee (Folgers) and place a thin window pancake
GM probe at 1 cm from the solid coffee surface.
	Without coffee: 45 cpm
	With coffee: 45 cpm

So, my coffee is completely non-radioactive. How about yours?

Best regards,  Wes
Wesley R. Van Pelt, PhD, CIH, CHP 
Wesley R. Van Pelt Associates, Inc.  
 
Jaro wrote:
> Would anyone happen to know what NORM there might be in coffee beans, to
increase their GM count rate to several times background ? .....such is the
result obtained by a friend with various coffees, in different towns.
>
>
>
> Jaro 
> ^^^^

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