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I know next to nothing about radioactivity-- enough to know licking fossils is inadvisable, although I'll admit that wasn't terribly disappointing news. What I'm wondering is whether specimens not radioactive enough to endanger a person are capable of damaging other specimens. Is there a need to segregate displays here, or am I just confused about the mechanics of this? My specific reason for asking is that at the moment I'm planning for my current favorite mineral specimen (which I am babying forever), an almandine garnet from Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia, to share a small shelf area with a tooth from the phosphate deposits in Oulad Abdoun Basin, Morocco and a few dinosaur bone pieces from the Hell Creek Formation of Montana (one from Dawson County) and Lance Creek Formation of Niobrara County, Wyoming. The shelf is not enclosed, by the way. Thanks for your help! :BigSmile:

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You are WAY overthinking this.  I've never heard of a fossil being so highly radioactive that it would be a concern for anything other than eating it.  Your other fossils and displays will be fine.

 

Just as a related side note to this, we have antique Uranium glass in our house.  Yes, it was made with actual uranium, and is radioactive.  Its safe.  ITs not recommend to use for food, but I brought some to work (fire dept) and tested them with a radiation meter.  I had to put the sensor almost touching them to get a reading.  There are 3 types of radiation, Alpha, Beta and Gamma.  Alpha only travels a short distance and can be brushed or washed off the surface.  Beta can travel little farther, penetrate lightweight material a short distance and long term exposer can be bad.  Gamma is one that everyone thinks of when they hear the term "radiation".  Thats the one that can be lethal or highly damaging, and can radiate other objects.  If your fossils have gamma radiation, they were secondarily radiated.  Its not something to worry about.

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"There is no shortage of fossils. There is only a shortage of paleontologists to study them." - Larry Martin

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35 minutes ago, hadrosauridae said:

If your fossils have gamma radiation, they were secondarily radiated.

What does this mean?
If a fossil or mineral emits gamma radiation, it simply contains also the intermediate products in the decay chain of the U-isotopes and Thorium. Like Radium etc. And this is very strictly the usual case. Every U-bearing mineral or fossil contains also gamma emitting radium etc, if old enough to be in radioactive equilibrium (about two million years for U238):

Radioactivity : Radioactive Equilibrium

Franz Bernhard

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Okay, this is fascinating info so far. Thanks! Are the particular fossils I mentioned likely to contain sufficient quantities of gamma emitting radium that they would hurt other things? And, if anyone here has a mineralogy sub-interest, how susceptible to radiation damage would that garnet be? It almost looks like something that would be fine with it, but that's me saying what it quite literally "looks like," lol.

 

Actually, this is a side question, but while this thread is alive and those particular dino bones are a topic... I know there's iron-y stuff going on in the Hell Creek. I don't know more than that; only that when we were prospecting on private land we encountered weird little iron concretions. Does that mean the bones from there could degrade in a "pyrite disease" kind of scenario, and thus need to be protected against that fate, or are they preserved in some more stable way?

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Really no problem for other minerals and your garnet. For example, big pieces of the highly radioactive mineral uraninite (pitchblende, UO2) have been stored in museums and personal collections for many, many decades. First, without knowing about the radiation, then, with knowing about the radiation. Nothing happened to the minerals nearby.

 

16 hours ago, Maniraptora said:

Hell Creek.

 

16 hours ago, Maniraptora said:

we encountered weird little iron concretions. Does that mean the bones from there could degrade in a "pyrite disease" kind of scenario, and thus need to be protected against that fate, or are they preserved in some more stable way?

@Troodon Thank you!

Franz Bernhard

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Biggest concern I have collecting is finding fossils and I'm not really worried about any of this.    Most of the highly radioactive bones to concern yourself with comes from the Morrison Fm especially if they were found near a uranium deposit in Utah.   The health issue comes to play when breathing in fine radioactive dust particles during preparation or cutting bone.   Those particles can remain in your lungs so you need to wear a mask when working on them.   Im not worried about the impact to adjacent fossils or myself since I don't sleep or hug them and occasional contact should not be an issue.   If concerned buy a geiger counter, they are not very expensive and test to see if they are hot enough to take special action.   

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6 hours ago, FranzBernhard said:

For example, big pieces of the highly radioactive mineral uraninite (pitchblende, UO2) have been stored in museums and personal collections for many, many decades. First, without knowing about the radiation, then, with knowing about the radiation. Nothing happened to the minerals nearby.

 

@FranzBernhard, I didn't know this story! I heard an anecdote about someone who had collected a random, small mineral specimen and put it, along with other comparatively insignificant things, in a box in the basement (as mineral and fossil collectors tend to do if they still want living space in their homes). Later, he was measuring the radiation levels in various spots in his house and discovered a ton of it coming up through one spot in the floor. It was that little specimen in the basement. Sounds like nothing bad happened to him or his collection, though! I guess it's helpful to remember that all this stuff is buried in the same sphere of mixed-up, recycled rock, and we live on top of it, and everything has to be able to take some radiation.

I noticed the nice track in your avatar. Is that in your personal collection?

 

1 hour ago, Troodon said:

Biggest concern I have collecting is finding fossils and I'm not really worried about any of this. Most of the highly radioactive bones to concern yourself with comes from the Morrison Fm especially if they were found near a uranium deposit in Utah.

.....

Im not worried about the impact to adjacent fossils or myself since I don't sleep or hug them and occasional contact should not be an issue.

 

@Troodon, great quotable first sentence there, ha! My bone chunk from the Morrison was displayed with many other specimens on an enclosed shelf for a while and never hurt anything in a tangible way. Sounds like this is nothing to worry about.

 

Thanks for the help, all!

...If there's going to be a law against hugging fossils, though, I might be in trouble.

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1 hour ago, Maniraptora said:

discovered a ton of it coming up through one spot in the floor. It was that little specimen in the basement.

The story is largely urban legend. You can barely detect the radiation of a piece of uraninite or any other mineral about 2 m away with a usual geiger counter, gamma radiation is already near background level at this distance. I don´t know about scintilometers, they are much more sensitive, but then, hey, if the radiation is already near background levels, no worry!

As said by @Troodon, one concern is inhalation of radioactive dust (and dust of any kind!). The second concern is buildup and inhalation of radon gas. Maybe that was the case in your story? You may have a look at the radon thing and the problems associated with it.

 

1 hour ago, Maniraptora said:

I noticed the nice track in your avatar. Is that in your personal collection?

Yes, it was, but no longer. Its not a track, its the transverse section of a rudist. I had many of them and still have some:

Hippurites (link to my personal homepage)

 

Franz Bernhard

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1 hour ago, FranzBernhard said:

The second concern is buildup and inhalation of radon gas. Maybe that was the case in your story? You may have a look at the radon thing and the problems associated with it.

 

I briefly looked up some info on radon gas. According to a few pages, the potential for its buildup necessitates that museums have good ventilation in areas where they store a lot of fossils? Doesn't sound like it would become an issue with just a few fossils out in the open with a whole house's worth of air for the gas to disperse in. Would a private collector with a large number of specimens stored in one place eventually need to be concerned about it?

 

1 hour ago, FranzBernhard said:

Yes, it was, but no longer. Its not a track, its the transverse section of a rudist. I had many of them and still have some:

Hippurites (link to my personal homepage)

 

Those are beautiful! It looks like your website is very informative. What exactly is a rudist? I'm guilty of mentally labeling things with shells as, simply... things with shells.

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25 minutes ago, Maniraptora said:

What exactly is a rudist?

Its an aberrant form of a bivalve with often very different valves. Here is nice summary of rudist shapes from the net:

Rudisten_Uebersicht.jpg.d1decf21e674c2d6f6da1429e6f8b8f3.jpg

They evolved in the Late Jurassic and went extinct with Dinos and Ammonites at the end of the Cretaceous.

 

35 minutes ago, Maniraptora said:

necessitates that museums have good ventilation in areas where they store a lot of fossils?

I have not looked into that, but I can imagine that a "heap" of slightly radioactive, porous(!) bones could give off quite an amount of radon. So it should at least be monitored. And the area ventilated, if "safe" levels are exceeded.

 

39 minutes ago, Maniraptora said:

Would a private collector with a large number of specimens stored in one place eventually need to be concerned about it?

Well, that would be a private museum ;). There is usually no problem with any kind of shells, as they don´t contain significant amount of U or Th. They are simply "rocks". Remember, you are already surrounded by rocks! As @Troodon said, some bones are quite U-rich, and when porous, could give off some radon. If safe or not - I can not say. Its a case by case thing. If one is concerned about it, Radon levels should be professionally measured.

 

We had strange Radon case here in Austria, you may have a look at the English abstract and may google translate the first sentences of the "Einleitung". Strange things can happen!

Radon Umhausen (link to pdf)

 

Franz Bernhard

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@FranzBernhard, I enjoyed learning about rudists and that strange radon anomaly you have in Austria-- thank you!

 

Thanks, everyone, for sharing your knowledge. I understand this whole topic better now. :)

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I'll admit this made me curious so I did a little science experiment on mine (fossils from different locations in US, Peru, Morocco, etc..the common places we see on here) and the only things that showed any increase (background 11CPM) were Mosasaur teeth (~45CPM) from Morocco and a meg tooth from Florida (~100CPM).  Pretty common for meg teeth from the ocean. Nothing in the same riker display as either of those showed increased levels.  Nothing to stress over as others have mentioned as long as they aren't eaten, slept with, or scratched and sniffed repetitively.

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*Frank*

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On 10/22/2022 at 5:24 PM, FB003 said:

I'll admit this made me curious so I did a little science experiment on mine (fossils from different locations in US, Peru, Morocco, etc..the common places we see on here) and the only things that showed any increase (background 11CPM) were Mosasaur teeth (~45CPM) from Morocco and a meg tooth from Florida (~100CPM).  Pretty common for meg teeth from the ocean. Nothing in the same riker display as either of those showed increased levels.  Nothing to stress over as others have mentioned as long as they aren't eaten, slept with, or scratched and sniffed repetitively.

That's really interesting! I would have guessed a little higher on the mosasaur teeth, for no particular reason, and I didn't expect that about the meg tooth! Do you know what's different about the ones from the ocean? Thanks for teaching us all something cool. :)

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42 minutes ago, Maniraptora said:

That's really interesting! I would have guessed a little higher on the mosasaur teeth, for no particular reason, and I didn't expect that about the meg tooth! Do you know what's different about the ones from the ocean? Thanks for teaching us all something cool. :)

Got me - would need a scientist of some sort to tell us that.  My understanding though is the ocean floor can be pretty nuclear in some places.

*Frank*

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On the topic of Moroccan mosasaur teeth, do you, @FB003, or anyone else here have some cleaning advice for those? Mine was sitting on the shelf, minding its own business, and now has a tiny little spot of organic-looking gunk on it.

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No idea unfortunately.  I keep everything in display cases so I don't have to worry about cleaning them much.  A picture might help in case someone with that expertise comes along.

*Frank*

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On 10/26/2022 at 8:24 PM, FB003 said:

No idea unfortunately.  I keep everything in display cases so I don't have to worry about cleaning them much.  A picture might help in case someone with that expertise comes along.

 

Ah, okay. I think I'll give that question a dedicated thread once I get the chance to take pics. Thanks again for sharing your findings from your experiment!

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