Questions tagged [radioactivity]
The radioactivity tag has no summary.
35 questions
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Do areas with high underground radon levels have uranium in it?
Uranium decays into radium, which decays into radon.
American Appalachia and its rocky underground has high radon levels, to the point where basements need ventilation.
Is it likely that uranium can ...
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What are the energy source(s) for the transformation(s) of fossil fuels?
Famously, fossil fuels are claimed to contain the energy from the sun collected over thousands of years by photosynthesis in the deep past. But, having looked into it a bit, it turns out, that ...
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Does anyone know more about Creationist stunts where they get labs to date Triassic Coal with C14 and recent Mt St Helens lava with K-Ar
A Creationists keeps responding to me insisting that radioactive dating is invalid because someone dated a 1986 lava flow from St Helens to 250,000 yrs, and they got a C14 date on Triassic Coal from ...
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Variability in 4.5 billion year age of earth based on radioactive dating of meteorites?
Which meteorites in particular give an age of 4.5 billion years and which isotopes are used for radioactive analysis? Is there much variability if different meteorites or isotopes are used?
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Could a natural fission reactor form in Cigar Lake?
Small localized deposits of 60%wt Uranium were found in Cigar Lake, Canada during the ‘90’s. If an exposed rich deposit like this were covered by sedimentary carbon from eroding rock, layering ...
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What kind of rock is this? [closed]
A few years ago in Venezuela, parque nacional de Cainama, the tourist guide found and gave me this rocks, he told us that a geologist told him that those could be radioactive but no one believed him. ...
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Why does radioactive dating work on specific rocks?
As I understand it, radioactive dating measures time by what portion of a radioactive isotope has decayed. Weren't all the natural radioactive isotopes created during the solar system's formation? So ...
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How much role does radioactivity play in making Earth geologically active [duplicate]
A hot molten core is important for making the Earth geologically active. I believe most of the heat is from the time of the planet formation, and the high pressures due to everything pushing down to ...
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Have we looked for human-like signals in the geological record?
This is somewhat of a follow up to some interesting discussion here about using synthetic radioisotopes to define the start of the anthropocene. It is also sort of related to a question asked here, ...
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Does the relative abundance of radioactive isotopes reflect their half-lives?
In Radiometric Dating: A Christian Perspective, the author argues (persuasively, I think) in favor of the mainstream interpretation of radiometric dating (as opposed to the claims of young earth ...
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When Earth formed 4.5 × 10⁹ years ago, how much radiation did surface rocks emit?
When Earth formed $\approx 4.5 \times 10^9$ years ago, Earth's surface rocks emitted more radiation because they had more unstable isotopes. All short half-life isotopes decayed long ago, and the ...
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In radiometric isochron dating why is at t=0 D*/Dref=const but P/Dref not?
I am a physics graduate and trying to understand one of the assumptions made for isochron dating of rocks: at crystallization time of the rock, $t=0$, the ratio of the parent isotope to a stable ...
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Independent sources of information on radiation pollution in Europe
Bear with me if this is a wrong place to ask this question. I aksed this question on Physics at StackExchange and was told it will be more on topic here.
Recent news show a fire has started close to ...
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Are hot springs in non-volcanic areas radioactive?
Hot springs in non-volcanic areas are attributed to the interaction of water with hot rocks deep in the earth's crust:
In non-volcanic areas, the temperature of rocks within the Earth also increases ...
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How can radiometric dating of meteorites determine the age of the earth? Wouldn't this only determine the age of the decaying nuclide in each rock? [duplicate]
How can the radiometric dating of different meteorites determine the age of the earth? Wouldn't radioactive decay have already been occurring in all of those meteorites long before they hit earth? ...
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