RE: Naturally-occurring Tritium

[Michael McNaughton <mcnaught@lanl.gov>]

At 08:11 AM 2/15/00 -0600, you wrote:
>I have seen a few hydrogeological studies that claim to be able
>to "date" ground water by the amount of tritium in it.  Is there really an
>adequate understanding of tritium in the environment to support this?

The math works to our advantage. If the estimate of the environmental
concentration is wrong by a factor of 8, it causes an error of 3 half lives
in the age of the groundwater. If the ground water is 1,000 years old, this
is a small error.

mike
Mike McNaughton
email: mcnaught@LANL.gov or mcnaughton@LANL.gov
phone: (505)667-6130
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