Re: Mt. St. Helens

["Ron L. Kathren" <rkathren@tricity.wsu.edu>]

That estimate is erroneously high, and I believe it originally appeared in
the Washington Post from an off the cuff statement made by a scientist at
PNNL.   Subsequent measurement of the Mt. St. Helens ash revealed that the
radium content was the same as that in the soils in the area, which as I
recall was about 0.4 pCi/g.  If you assume that 2 cubic miles of soil were
released, and that the radium was in equilibrium with its radon daughter,
you can get a reasonably good estimate of the amount of radon released.  If
you assume a soil density of somewhere between 2 and 3, you get somewhere
around 15,000 Ci, unless I miscalculated somewhere.  An earlier calculation
that I did shortly after the eruption (and which was orally reported to
President Carter on his way to Portland, OR aboard Air Force 1, but this is
another story), was 30,000 Ci.

For those interested, the doses were calculated and published in Sciience
for 6 October 1980 by Soldat, Kathren, Corley and Strenge.

Ron Kathren

----Original Message-----
From: Laurie Taylor <laurie-taylor@uiowa.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Date: Thursday, September 16, 1999 6:34 AM
Subject: Re: Mt. St. Helens


>Luke,
>
>The source I have estimates that 3 million curies of radon was released
>during the Mount Saint Helens eruption in 1980.  That reference is "
>Radiation & Radioactivity on Earth and Beyond" by Draganic, Draganic and
>Adloff, CRC Press, Inc.  1990.
>
>Hope this helps!
>Laurie Taylor, Health Physics Associate
>The University of Iowa
>Health Protection Office
>318-335-8532
>laurie-taylor@uiowa.edu
>
>At 03:15 AM 9/16/99 -0500, you wrote:
>I remember seeing a paper that listed the estimated activity in the
>emissions from the Mt St. Helens eruption. My search of the HP Journal
>didn't turn up any articles, and the USGS  volcano homepage provided no
>help.  Does anyone have or  know where I can find these numbers?  Thanks in
>advance. Luke McCormick
>mccormickl@hq.hqusareur.army.mil
>
>
>
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