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- Title
Radiochronological age of a uranium metal sample from an abandoned facility.
- Authors
Meyers, Lisa; Williams, Ross; Glover, Samuel; LaMont, Stephen; Stalcup, Apryll; Spitz, Henry
- Abstract
A piece of scrap uranium metal bar buried in the dirt floor of an old, abandoned metal rolling mill was analyzed using multi-collector inductively coupled plasma mass spectroscopy (MC-ICP-MS). The mill rolled uranium rods in the 1940 and 1950s. Samples of the contaminated dirt in which the bar was buried were also analyzed. The isotopic composition of uranium in the bar and dirt samples were both the same as natural uranium, though a few samples of dirt also contained recycled uranium; likely a result of contamination with other material rolled at the mill. The time elapsed since the uranium metal bar was last purified can be determined by the in-growth of the isotope Th from the decay of U, assuming that only uranium isotopes were present in the bar after purification. The age of the metal bar was determined to be 61 years at the time of this analysis and corresponds to a purification date of July 1950 ± 1.5 years.
- Subjects
INDUCTIVELY coupled plasma mass spectrometry; RADIOCHEMISTRY; URANIUM isotopes; ROLLING-mill machinery; BARS (Engineering); CHEMICAL purification; RADIOACTIVE dating; THORIUM
- Publication
Journal of Radioanalytical & Nuclear Chemistry, 2013, Vol 296, Issue 2, p669
- ISSN
0236-5731
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s10967-012-2058-6