Identifying contamination....

[Joelle Key <jkey@mail.state.tn.us>]

Can anyone out there help with this one?

A metals processor received a shipment that contained some
radioactivity... we have been unable to identify where the material
originated... this is what we know about the shipment.

The material was part of a bin of metal chips and shavings from a
machine shop. Only a portion of the metal in the bin is contaminated.

Preliminary results of the laboratory analysis of a piece of metal the size
of a head of a pin indicated three radionuclides:

Units are in  picoCuries  per sample, since the metal fragment was too
small for the laboratory to weigh.  

Cobalt 57         5823   +/-     24       
Cobalt 58            706   +/-     55
Zinc    65        20056   +/-   104

Has anyone out there seen this or something similar before?  Any help
would be appreciated.

Joelle Key
TN - Division of Radiological Health
jkey@mail.state.tn.us

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