Radioactive

Our selection of radioactive minerals, and anything related to radioactivity.

Obviously, these aren’t going to be everyones cup of tea, but radioactive minerals are quite popular amongst some collectors.

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Dangers? Well, possibly.

Ionising radiation is, of course, damaging to human health. That doesn’t necessarily mean they are extremely dangerous, if the proper precautions are taken.

I won’t be writing an article here on the safe handling of radioactive minerals, as I’m by no means an expert on the subject.

One of the most common things people do is to assume radiation is just immediately dangerous, and its understandable – we have seen nuclear disasters and people with radiation poisoning, etc.

Exposure to ionising radiation is much the same as any poison, toxin, or hazard though. The dose is the key.

When storing radioactive or toxic materials or minerals, I try to maintain a few basic principles:

  • reduce dust
  • keep minerals boxed
  • wear gloves on handling
  • maximise distance from sources whenever possible

 

I think the last point is one that not everyone considers.

A weak radioactive source (5kg of Madagascan Apatite), measured at various distances from the detector:

  • 1.8µSv/hr at 0CM
  • 0.4µSv/hr at 25CM
  • 0.14µSv/hr at 50CM (average background radiation inside my house).

That’s just in the air, from distance alone – no shielding, no display case.

A dental X-Ray is around 5µSv as a single dose; eating 100g of brazil nuts would be nearly double that!

So while sticking a geiger counter into a bucket of apatite may seem scary, as the numbers increase greatly over background, we should really look at it in a slightly different way.

If I were to leave my hand in a bucket of apatite for an hour, I’d potentially receive around the same exposure I would by eating around 18 grams of brazil nuts. With the distance increased to 25CM (again, for an hour), that would be the equivelant of eating around 4 grams of brazil nuts.

So by keeping sources further away from us the majority of the time, we can greatly reduce the dosage received. Thats before we even start to include shielding, cases, etc.

Of course, any collector of radioactive minerals should invest in a detector of some kind, ideally one that measures alpha, beta, and gamma radioactivity.