Re: Virgin Lead

["Schoenhofer" <schoenho@via.at>]

Schoenhofer
Habichergasse 31/7
A-1160 Wien
AUSTRIA
Tel./Fax: +43-1-4955308
Mobiltel.: +43-664-3380333
e-mail: schoenho@via.at

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> Von: Dale E. Boyce <dale@radpro.uchicago.edu>
> An: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
> Betreff: Virgin Lead
> Datum: Freitag, 20. Juni 1997 16:49
> 
> Actually I believe the contaminated lead was virgin lead. If you
> start with lead ore from a mine where the uranium concentration
> and therefore radium concentration is high, you will end up with
> hot lead from the Pb210, Bi210, Po210 daughters (RaDEF).
> 
> A group I used to work with had a whole stack of lead ignots that had
> been ballast in an old dutch sailing ship.  It was latched onto in the
> belief that it would make great shielding for low background detectors,
> having had time for radioactive contaminants to decay away.  In reality,
> it was still more contaminated than lead we bought that had been mined
> in Illinois recently.
> 
> 
> Dale Boyce
> dale@radpro.uchicago.edu

Dale,

I appreciate your comment, because I was thinking that the "contamination"
might be just the natural content of Pb.210. I wonder whether other
RADSAFERS have data at hand to show what the "natural Pb-210 -
contamination" might be: I suspect that the reported activity
concentrations levels correspond to natural occurrance of Pb-210. Is there
any justification for calling the radionuclide concentration measured as
"contamination"? In my opinion "contamination" refers to a deliberately
enhanced concentrations of radionuclides. 

Franz