Nuclear Fallout Accidentally Discovered at a Montana Trail
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ก.ย. 2024
- While exploring a radioactive trail leading up to the Gallatin Towers climbing area in South Western Montana I found evidence of nuclear fallout that was from nuclear testing 65 years ago at the Nevada Test Site. I was only able to detect this fallout using a Radiacode 101 as it was able to show a gamma spectrum of the radiation I was detecting.
If you are looking for something radioactive check out uraniumstore.com
Camera used: Sony A7S3
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Lens used: Sony 16-35mm f2.8 GM
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Second lens used: Sony 50mm f1.2 GM
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Drone used: DJI Air 2S
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That radiation that you are detecting is most likely from Arco Idaho. The nuclear lab in Arco had an accident back some time in the 50's or 60's. The test reactor had a meltdown and breached containment. The map you showed for the fall out starts at and around arco. Just an fyi. I live in Idaho as well.
👍
I was wondering about Hanford in Washington state. I believe they had an accident at some point as well.
@@LonC1966 Hanford is where the Manhattan Project took place and is where they store all the nuclear waste and I do believe you're correct that it's the location of what's called the nuclear elephant's foot that was created during an accident there that was enclosed once and they had to construct a larger containment around it to dismantle the previous failing containment...
And they wonder why cancer is such a huge issue in our society, the government exposed us all over generations now to the repercussions of their weapon curiosity
@@RogueFamilyAdventures you're mixing up Hanford and Chernobyl two very different places.
@@RogueFamilyAdventures Hanford is one of the locations that the Manhattan Project took place. There were about 30 sites spread out between the US, Canada and the UK that played a part in research, development and testing. Oak Ridge Tennessee being one and the Army Garrison headquarters at that time. I work with a lot of Rad Tech's and Engineers that worked a lot of those sites. The elephant's foot is underneath Chernobyl's original core location. The fuel melted and fused with the sand underneath the reactor core building forming the elephant's foot. It was actually a good thing it formed or the contamination spread would have been much worse.
In the late '80's early '90's I did a lot of outcrop logging with a gamma-ray scintillometer to produce synthetic GR logs to accompany lithologic descriptions. Our instrument of choice was about the size of shoe box, weighed ~12lbs and ate batteries like crazy. Now I see you with a pocket tool. I'm so jealous.
I uhhhh, English? I don’t speak smart people 😅
@@stopredless8447 30 year ago tech vs current tech
@@stopredless8447 In layman's terms: That little pocket size machine can do what a backpack size machine did 40 years ago.
@@bueb8674 ok this helps!
@@stopredless8447 Although I am not at all up on nuclear science, I can give you another example that was given to me. A fact that is rather mind-blowing, again to me. There is far more computer memory, punch and power in your smartphone than in the computers NASA astronauts used to fly to the moon and back.
Im still waiting for your channel to blow up. You will get there some day, keep up the hard work! This content is worthy of a lot more subscribers!
Thanks for the encouragement and I’m glad you are enjoying the videos.
Given this video was about Nuclear Fallout I would have avoided the term, “blow up”, but otherwise agree with you.
Just a matter of time. Good stuff
I am determined to try to set up a collaboration between Drew and Gly from lost and forgotten places. They both have great personalities and they share a love of wonderful production quality. This content deserves to go viral. There was a time when legacy TV would air quality media like this but it seems to be passed now in favour of celebrity reality mogadon for the masses. 😳
Do you know Prince George Utah? The uranium mine waste was taken to Hollywood studio used to fill and grade. People did become sick 😫 first bomb.
For those who don't know, The "Baby tooth study" is a super interesting study into the fallout, and where it settled after the first rounds of nuclear testing
The Chernobyl fallout settled around the alps. Its still forbidden to eat mushrooms from these forrests because radiation has concentrated in there. If a hunter shoots wild boars he has to dispose it as nuclear waste because they love to eat mushrooms.
@@indahooddererste They probably aren't trying to give away a lot of information for those of us who genuinely want to check it out.. i.e.; avoiding spoilers..
I lived in Montana in the early 60s. I remember being warned about radioactive snow.
Wow…at least they warned you.
@@RadioactiveDrew Mostly telling us not to eat the snow.
do not eat the glowing snow
Hi, I don’t know if you have heard this, I grew up in St. Louis, MO. I was in 3rd grade in 1959. The school collected our ‘baby teeth’. It turned out they were doing an ‘autopsy’ on us to determine our Cesium 137 exposure. Chemically it looks like calcium, so it ended up in teeth and bones. Kennedy signed a treaty that stopped open air testing in the early’60s. I’m sure that fallout 1,500-2,000 miles down win changed a lot of minds. They didn’t have anything near as nice as your gamma wave detector back then. Back then they didn’t even know that they needed it. (So the story goes)
Usually strontium-90 is the fallout isotope that gets into the bones.
ב''ה, and the "Tooth Fairy" was born.
Cs is more like Na and K as far as mimicking other elements. Those 3 are all in same group in periodic chart.
I live in a small region in Australia which is known to have been specifically impacted by fallout from a British nuclear test conducted quite distantly (in the late ‘50s) and brought down by heavy rain. It’s not _widely_ known due to secrecy, and the local dairy industry was particularly affected with limited and insufficient quarantining of milk (also very hushed). If spectrographic tools like this are affordable now, I’d be fascinated to do some surveying myself. Some evidence of residual contamination would be helpful in revealing the truth of this awful event to those who were never aware or have forgotten.
Thanks for this short but enlightening presentation.
Just checking in to make sure you haven't been silenced, lol
The Montebello Islands, I learned about it in Biggles who mentions it in "Biggles in Australia"...
To your point, lots of thyroid cancer in folks from Central Montana that grew up in the 70s. My mom and dad lost friends to it.
This is something I would like to investigate further.
@@RadioactiveDrew could be really interesting. The half life of Iodine 131 is only like, 8 days; so that means it only had a couple of weeks to float from the test sites, accumulate, and cause damage. That is of course if the thyroid issues were primarily from I-131. I honestly don't know, just a theory. 👍
My coffee mug once sent a geiger counter nutter. It was earthenware, made by my great grandmother from West Virginia mountain clay. We suspect one of the glazes used was the culprit, as that same clay made all the old moonshine jugs. More radioactive than my 17 jewel Gruen gold watch radium hands and dial markers.
I’d love me some radioactive moonshine…
That should be a concern to your health.
My parents have a couple of old moonshine earthernware jugs. I'll have to test them next time I'm in the area. They keep them outside as part of the garden decor.
Uranium oxide glaze was a thing bsck in the day, orange in colour. Over here it's quite collectable
@@MrRedeyedJedi The Hatfields still run some stills and they do collect and love her moonshine jugs.
The coffee mug has red and orange bands of color around it. It emits mostly Gamma radiation I guess. I've had it 'since 1969 when she passed away at 103 years old - only because she fell off her roof. I tried yelling at her "What were you doing up on your roof you silly bat?!! She was spicy. "It was leaking and YOU sure weren't nowhere around offerin' to fix it!" So I think I'll keep using her coffee mug with love in honor of her spiciness. radioactivity and all.
The more thumbs up the more the system recommends the channel. This guy needs more exposure so click the up thumb on as many comments as you can.
I did a paper in the 90's about the continental contamination from above ground nuclear testing. People would be surprised what we did to ourselves!
Oh yeah, they nuked the crap out of Utah.
I've lived all over that country and never knew this. Thanks for the video.
There's quite a bit of mines, tailings and old possibly government sites back on the "Navajo reservation" Arizona from 1920' - 1970's ish. Where abandoned equipment, waste, and uranium deposits can still be found. If that's interest you.
I love that a lot of the narration was done outdoors at the trail. Not many youtubers do that, instead favoring a studio setup. While studio setups sound great, they feel more sterile.
Almost all of the nuclear weapons tests conducted in the contentental US were in southern Nevada. If you look at your fallout map you can see a path that starts in eastern Idaho. You're probably detecting fallout from the Idaho National Labratory between Arco, Idaho and Idaho Falls. Lots of blown up, melded down reactors out there.
Thank you, for your channel. I've always said these are criminally underrated videos.
There has been meltdowns out at the INL but the contamination from those incidents were extremely localized. So the likelihood of it being from there is extremely low. There have been 16 fallout clouds that have passed over the area I tested. So the likelihood of it being from those Nevada nuclear tests is pretty good.
Thanks for being such a fan of the channel.
@@RadioactiveDrew The actor John Wayne was making a movie, I believe 'The Conqueror' in 1955, in I believe southern Utah, during a Nevada test. He later contracted cancer and swore that the atomic test was the cause of it.
@@RadioactiveDrew In addition, fallout from Fukushima did make it to Montana so some of it could be from that.
The fallout from Fukushima didn’t make it to Montana. The explosion wasn’t nearly powerful enough for that.
@@jackbailey7037 "He later contracted cancer and swore that the atomic test was the cause of it..." Swore, as in a sworn affidavit? And how would he know? He was a life-long chain smoker and developed lung cancer. There are alternative explanations.
It's crazy that A-Bomb tours used to be a thing back in the day. People would pay to sit in a spot designated safe and upwind from fallout and watch the bomb go off.
I'd definitely do that.
Can you please consider doing an episode on gamma spectroscopy, using your RadiaCode 101 using some of the items that you have in your collection, such as the radium and uranium sources to see how well it works in identifying these known isotopes?
I think I could do that.
78yr old American veteran, living at White Bird, Idaho. Thanks for the information.
Wouldn’t have expected this high after more than 6 decades. That map explains some things I experienced in Idaho. The wildlife would set off detectors when they came close to the facility. Then they’d have to be collected (with a 30-06).
No one does, we weren't taught to believe anything other than that.
Cs-137 for example has a half life of about 30 years and it takes about 10 half lifes for a radioactive source to decay back to background levels. That's 3 centuries.
In any case, after 3 or 4 half lifes we are still looking at high levels. So 1 century is still an health issue - and that is just for Cs137.
Plutonium has a half life of 24,000 years. Good luck with that radioactive contaminant in the environment.
These videos are helping me out a great deal. You have a gift. You communicate with your audience in a way the average person can understand, follow and find interesting. This may seem somewhat simplistic to you, and you may not even realize you are doing this. But, you are. A lot of people cannot do this.
Thanks. I think it comes from talking to lots of people about this subject.
Born and raised in Bozeman. Never heard of anything up there being affected. Thank you for sharing this.
You didn't even get a superpower? That's unfortunate!
@@SCARFACE69247 highly disappointing
@@usmc88fan Lol
“Affected” is being generous, it’s not like the levels are remotely dangerous. Plus all around the Rockies have higher than normal levels of radiation from natural uranium deposits anyway!
@@Sniperboy5551 Exactly.
Just stumbled across this video, have been greatly intetested in anything and everything radiation related, so ofcourse i was very happy indeed to find your channel!
Really nice and interesting video. Amazing quality as always. Wouldn't have thought that fallout from such a distance and long time ago.
Same here. But it makes sense based on the half-life of Cs137 and the fallout patterns from that time period.
In the early 60's I took a course in survival in a nuclear incident, and while in the service I actually witnessed a detonation. Your right it's not as risky out there just don't eat off the ground, lol.
That cancer map you showed looks pretty similar to the fallout map that I saw on another channel, where it was said that the USA copped a huge amount of fallout from it’s own weapons testing. Think it was Veritasium talking about FFT’s or Tom Scott’s channel.
The FFT video gets into that? Now I have to watch it. It keeps showing up in my feed, but having watched Numberphile's long FFT video, didn't think Veritasium would have a whole lot of new info.
@@chris-hayes - this:
th-cam.com/video/nmgFG7PUHfo/w-d-xo.html
As far as a gamma spectrometer goes, the radiacode 101 has pretty poor resolution. It will pick up the spectrum of a smoke detector pretty easily but it's really bad at picking out stuff from uranium ore. It's great as a general purpose meter you can take on trips and keep in your pocket for long term data collection to identify geographic hotspots.
Would you be able to recommend any portable gamma spectrometers for field work? I’ve used energy dispersive x-Ray microanalyzers professionally, but they’re not very portable. Thanks for your consideration.
Atmospheric ground testing of nuclear weapons in Nevada produced particulate clouds. These clouds of particulates seeded water clouds and produced localized precipitation events that contained high levels of radioactive materials. Particulates became the nuclei of water droplets, which fell as rain, and then sometimes the water portion evaporated before it hit the ground. These events produced particles that were collected and mixed by the water condensation, then as the water evaporated they were gathered together into dust sized particles which eventually settled to the ground.
So glad I found your channel yesterday. Great video!
Glad to have you here.
Come to Mississippi and inspect the Tatum Salt Dome. The only nuclear underground test East of the Mississippi River. This was a test conducted in a salt formation at roughly 1000' at depth. Some rich history with the test that also include a second test in the underground excavated salt dome.
I live in the state of New Mexico. And from what I was told that the average background radiation is a lot higher here than most places I guess that’s because we went boom first with the atomic bomb and we continue to do it here for years on end
Ever hear of the story behind the shooting of the John Wayne movie 'The Conqueror' and how the crew and cast all had very high cancer rates. They shot the movie in a fallout zone. Maybe visit the shooting location and see what pops up.
That would be cool to check out.
One of the strongest Conqueror film locations is about 10 miles north and slightly west of St. George, Utah in an area now called Snow Canyon State Park
@@waynegnarlie1 southern utah had massive cancer rates from above ground testing--the usa goooooovermint fought against compendsation for years until everybody sueing died--i did work as a contractor in the Nevada test site when they went with underground testing--we always wore monitors--mine never went off
I worked in software development for nuclear detectors early in my career. It's stronger some places then others but you can pick it up anywhere in the world. It just takes a tiny trace amount to produce a signal.
And create a cancer
@@celtglen At those levels it would be one chance in many millions. If even that. If you have ever gone outside you have received far far more ionizing radiation from the UV.
I'm Canadian, years ago we'd come down to that area to the Radiation mines for healing. Would that be the same?
If you ever come to Colorado I'd love to see what you find at the site of the former Rocky Flatts nuclear site. They have opened up much of the site to a wildlife preserve, although I think some small parts of the site are off limits.
I’ve visited the site before and hiked around the perimeter fence. Had some black SUVs watching me off in the distance. I want to go back there and make a proper video about the place.
There is a large development near by: Candelas. Be careful
Probably full of weird creatures the rangers talk of
There’s a sign at the entrance to a hiking trail at Rock Flats explaining the risks (minimal) and reminding people they are going to die of something, someday. Maybe a mountain lion attack. It’s almost poetic.
@@BillLaBrie the risk is NOT minimal unless youre talking about greed
Another fascinating find….I enjoy these.
Thanks man. I always like making them as I feel like I get to learn something new in the process.
Been enjoying your outdoor exploring episodes for radioactive materials. Place might be interesting is Colorado near Rulison. Back in the late 60's they did tests with nuclear devices for gas extraction.
I think someone has suggested that location before.
Could the radiation be from Eastern Washington's production of plutonium in the 40's, 50's and 60's. There was a huge downwind exposure to the population of Wasington and Idaho. My father died from cancer related to being a "downwinder".
I love your videos they are so inspiring and i did a school presentation with stuff you teached me. Keep going man!😄
That’s so awesome. Hopefully all my info was correct.
I’m nearly sixty and I still love learning! I sense that you will go far my young friend. Never stop learning!
@@robinwells8879 there is so much to learn and explore with the subject of radiation I feel like I will never stop learning.
TH-cam suggested your channel today, and I’m glad that it did. Fascinating video that captured my attention. Keep it up!!!
The detectors I trained with started reading at 1/rad per hour. We were trained to walk in find that reading and mark the line. Then walking the edge to mark a relatively safe path for following units. Seems your unit is much more sensitive.
Yeah, modern equipment is much, much more sensitive. A lot of the readings he’s getting wouldn’t have even been noticed back in the day, it’s hardly even something to be concerned about now.
1 rad/hr is a fair amount of dose.
You have to wonder if the source might be more specific than mere fallout. Satellite Iridium-33 debris from 09 onward could have landed in Montana, I personally saw one fireball as far south as Oregon.
The Kodak company new the first nuclear test was done half way across the country when there x ray film got spots on at the factory . Scary shit that they polluted the planet 🌏 back then .
About 22 years ago several friends and I were traveling North through the canyon at around 4:30 am. We all witnessed a spectacular and very large ufo hovering over the Portal Creek area. I went up Portal Creek road recently and it is very obvious that a large circular area of the forest has encountered serious stunted growth!
Not sure if it's related at all to your discovery but, it seems like a pretty interesting coincidence.
I love my B20-ER, but that Radiascan looks awesome!
Yeah, I wish I initially got the B20-ER model but I’m super happy with the B20. It’s been a very solid detector for these last couple years.
I-131 has an 8-day half-life. That means in a month It has reduced by 16x. Iodine typically comes from milk and seafood, reducing or eliminating your consumption of these items for 1 month after the accident will drastically lower your risk (and is also effective if you don't have KI around). This is what they should have done for the Chornobyl accident (which even though handled badly, still killed very few people, and few got thyroid cancer). Radiation is a hazard, but it is the dose that makes the poison - very high one-time doses or moderately high ones over a long time have a significant effect. Anything low dose has no statistical negative effect. There is no need to live in abject fear of radiation in our daily lives and nuclear plants release far less radiation than coal plants. Also, the Gy numbers quoted account for ALL the radiation released, not just I-131. The actual I-131 was far lower than the total release, and due to its short half-life, decayed quickly. Thyroid cancer has a 99% survival rate, particularly if addressed quickly, but it is easily prevented in a nuclear release from these tips. The bomb on the other hand is the real problem.
Nice to see people getting it right. You’re the only other person I’ve read in the comments say “the dose makes the poison”. Which is the same thing I tell people.
fascinating, Montana.. like all the western states are great places to to hike and explore.. I would love to explore some of the locations in your videos when I retire in 2024 though climbing and hiking is my main interest.. this only adds another interesting detail to think about.
I hope you get to explore Montana one of these days. Just keep an eye out for our Grizzlies.
A simple solution for the screen shutting off is enable developer options (tap build number in "about phone" till it turns them on) then set "do not sleep while charging" and connect a power bank
Thank you for the information.
There is also a controversy about exotic,man made radio-isotopes found on mars...... Fallout on land would be also be worse without rainfall and the movement of material down the watershed and transported out by water movement, basically leaching process. Its how the oceans became salty.
THERE'S THIS PLACE.....up near Dawsonville GA. Back in the 60's they would expose missile components and other electronic gear to giant doses of gamma radiation - presumably to see how the devices would perform in a nuclear environment, being bombed, etc. They used a source on an elevator that rose up and blasted the test articles for a specified time, then was lowered back into it's shielded enclosure. I'm not sure where it is, but it's sort-of off limits, but people have clambered all over the place..... might be worth a look if you ever get into north Georgia. Pretty good barbecue here, too. I'm a radioman and a junk collector and your video of the aircraft instruments inspired me to find and collect all my radium-bearing meters in my parts room and ....take them out of the house. They say they're "SEALED - DO NOT OPEN".... but they're in ammo cans on the porch now. (What does one do with such stuff anyhow without getting on some evil watch list?) Love your stuff. You may have raised my chances of living to old age, Drew. Thanks. Jeff
Thanks for the heads up on that location. I’ll have to look into it. Those radium gauges are usually pretty spicy and if they aren’t still sealed can leak radium dust, which is a pretty big problem. The ones I have I keep in an old safe away from everyone. They can be stored safely but I’m not a big fan of having stuff that hot and a gamma emitter in the house.
Dana Durnford (YT) has been reporting on the world's radioactivity for years. He "live" streams several times a week, with 24/7 phone-in, too... and, every show is packed with nuclear updates and knowledge - and, will defintely add to Radoactive Drew's investigations. Cheers
After about 2000 nuke tests in Nevada it shouldn't be a surprise.
Nicely done. That Radiacode is a lot cheaper than my home setup, and it travels, very cool.
I would like to get a home setup to run more exact tests. The Radiacode 101 is great for quick and dirty stuff.
Amazing package in such a small size. Truly remarkable.
Great location and very informative thankyou drew and regards from Scotland to you all on here....fallout is scary but I'm amazed that there's still signs of atomic tests wow bro...wow
I was very surprised to find it as well. I thought I was going to find isotopes of thorium and uranium out there.
Your channel contains awesome content! Love this! Keep it coming!
Interesting to see how far detectors have come. Back in the day a group from Sandia and Lawrence Livermore visited my work site. They were part of DOEs NEST team. We provided different sources and completed items for them to train on detecting hidden items. Their equipment was in a small motor home which they would drive by the test area and get their readings. They actually detected each source and where they were manufactured.
I visited the NTS too. That was a fascinating place. For me, the vacuum testing was the most interesting.
Great video, Drew (as usual). Would love to see your take on the sources of fallout in the US. I see mentioned in the comments about accidents at various nuclear facilities and that tests were performed in southern Nevada. Are there other locations of interest/concern? And can you fingerprint the fallout down to the facility level (do they even have unique fingerprints?)? Thx!
That would be very difficult to do. But I would imagine there is a way to do it to some extent.
I wonder how Treasure Island is looking these days?
We lived there back in the late 80s when everyone was at a slow cook while living over a radioactive landfill.
I think the 89 earthquake fluffed the sheets.
I want to go back out there and check it…also Hunters Point.
Did you collect some soil and take it with you to record a clearer spectrum at home? The Cs peak protrudes only very weakly from the spectrum. Try the difference between linear and logarithmic representation. You can save the spectrum in the library and export it from there as an XML file. Would you please provide this online?
Maybe you are interested in tips etc. for the RadiaCode, then take a look at the geigerzaehlerforum (mostly in german). We have been supporting the device since it was launched in early 2021.
I would love to see you come to Colorado and see if you can detect any plutonium downwind and downstream from the Rocky flats munitions plant where they have plutonium go into the river and also have plutonium fires... I heard in the news a few years ago that they decided not to finish building the 470 freeway because of contamination in the Arvada and golden area.
I've been to the site before, some years ago before I was making videos. I'm planning on going back to investigate the area a bit more and make a video.
Tests were performed in Maralinga Australia indigenous communities saw it lived to speak about everybody dying of cancer and one child becoming blind in 3 weeks
Pretty horrible what governments do to their own people.
@@RadioactiveDrew there is footage of americans conducting faux agreements really just playing them for fools making them real live test dummies .
back in the 1960's, my dad, a chemical engineer with Union Carbide, spent lots of time around Bozeman, MT working with uranium mines and other stuff I didn't know about..I wonder if you are looking as some of the stuff he was playing with.
I know there are some uranium claims around here. But the isotope cesium-137 is manmade.
So is there a map where and when the test(s) occurred that created the fallout?
Of St. George, Utah, Lewis Strauss, Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission said: "East, they (the atomic clouds) go over St. George, which always gets plastered."
You want to see radioactive fallout, you need to explore around Harrisburg PA area and across from 3 Mile Island
It is SUPER HOT
Have you been there and taken any readings?
My dad worked for Willow Run Radiation Lab WWll and after. These labs are everywhere. Sure, lots of contaminants and genetics affects health outcomes, but cancer profiles and data such as frequency of ALS diagnoses are higher in industrialization areas. Close in CWE has an EPA site a bit to the east and north that leaks into residential areas every time there is a heavy rain. Deserts are not the only environment in which our government has endangered its citizens.
Have been really enjoying your content. I have been interested in radioactive things since my dad gave me a radium dial aircraft timer when I was about 4 years old. He had borrowed a Geiger counter from his physics lab to demonstrate. Looks like I will be upgrading my old Vic Tic pretty soon now that there are cool new data acquisition units like the Radeye
The Radeye is a pretty cool unit and I really like using mine. I wish there was a better option out there to be honest. Support from Thermo Fisher sucks and they make all the accessories so expensive. But having a detector that can do alpha, beta and gamma...dose rates...use energy compensated filters for dose rates and a bunch of other survey meter tasks is pretty handy.
Ft McClellan Aka is covered with C 137 and cobalt 60.
This is all well and good, but the important question is, which of these radioactive isotopes will be most likely to _infuse_ a person with superpowers? Oh, and which superpower(s) can one expect to acquire?
Seriously though, in your travels, have you come across any areas where radiation is so severe that it would be potentially dangerous to spend a few hours(or maybe a few days) there?
Good stuff you deserve way more views than what the algorithm is giving you
Thanks. I’m pretty happy with the amount of views I’ve been getting over the last couple days.
You need to check out Santa Susana Field Laboratory just outside of Los Angeles CA. Famed nuclear reactor meltdown back in the 50/60’s…
I’ve hiked around the area and have done some preliminary filming for a video about the area. Lots of people have requested a video about the site.
Might be worth a few more trips to the area. I could see a multi episode series on this one. The wildfires that recently ravaged the area actually pushed fallout into surrounding areas and neighborhoods. Water runnoff off the mountain has always been know to be “hot”. Lots of national coverage has sprung up on this facility over the last ten years. Lots of curios minds. If you find yourself back in LA, please reach out. I can show you some things.
As a fellow Montanan I find this very intriguing. I wonder, when there are wildfires, does the isotope stay in the ground or does it vaporize up in to the air?
It stays in the ground. I was able to detect it because of those rocks were holding that soil. Everywhere else the fallout evidence is going to be down over a foot into the ground. You would have to dig to find it.
@@RadioactiveDrew so during a wildfire it stays on the ground in Montana but contaminates Agoura Hills, Thousand Oaks, Simi Valley, Moorpark, Calabasas, and environs with massively elevated radiation levels after burning through the old Santa Susana site? I believe that we have been deceived as to the actual exposures in Eastern Ventura County. It's past the time that authorities are compelled to be honest about the potential perils to communities so the inhabitants can make informed choices, and if you are minimizing the danger then you are part of the problem. Take your responsibility seriously.
I do take what I say and show seriously. I think these environments aren’t the same. I’ve hiked around the Santa Suzana area and know a bit about the history there with the partial meltdown. I also know how they use to dispose of chemicals in a very unsafe way. I think people need to worry about chemical exposure at that site, not radiation exposure. I also doubt very much that the area radiation by Santa Suzana increased with the fires there…unless a building holding a bunch of old waste went up. If it’s isotopes in the dirt then it’s very unlikely for them to end up in the air.
In the study titled "Cesium Emissions from Labaroatory Fires"... they did an experiment learn more about this specific problem. The study states "In the event of a wildfire in a radionuclide-contaminated forest, some radionuclides would be emitted in the air while the rest would remain in the ash. This paper reports on a laboratory simulation study that examines the partitioning of cesium-133 (a non-radioactive isotope of cesium) between airborne particulate matter and residual non-entrained ash when pine needles and peat are doped with cesium. Only 1-2.5 percent of the doped cesium in pine needles was emitted as particulate matter, and most of the cesium was concentrated in the particulate fraction greater than 10 μm in aerodynamic diameter. For peat fires, virtually all of the cesium remained in the ash. The results from this study will be used for modeling efforts to assess potential exposure risks to firefighters and the surrounding public."
It may not be perfect but perhaps it represents what MAY happen to fallout during a wildfire.
@@RadioactiveDrew I appreciate your response, but respectfully disagree with your conclusion. Insofar as the Montana environment is concerned, one would think that after this many years of rain, snow and more abundant Flora than that found in the semi-arid Santa Susana region, that any radiological elements should have been absorbed, dispersed, saturated or otherwise neutralized. Your investigation proves that this is not the case, that these elements still exist upon the surface, so consequently will be released into the atmosphere during drought or Wildfire events. Further, it takes little investigation to realize that radiological contamination in the Santa Susana area resulting from the 2019 wildfire was widespread. Unfortunately these results that have been made public have been collected by Weekend Warriors such as yourself who have no backing of government or corporate specialists, who so far have discounted and ignored layman's findings. Having witnessed first hand what I believe to be a number of the ill effects of chemical and radiological contamination as it affects especially children and newborns whose mothers have been in the vicinity of these accidents and disasters, we cannot run through the countryside exposing their continued existence and then fall in with government and or corporate Talking Heads that tell us don't worry about it everything is going to be okay. Everything is not okay. There are kids right this second playing in a park in a Hazmat site. Might I suggest that you continue to expose problems where you find them and not opine as a quasi expert as to what their affects may or may not be on the citizens nearby. Thanks
Lots of fallout in White Sulphur Springs area resulted in high cancer rate.
Yeah I need to check that place out.
I picked up a cheap Chinese GM tube counter as a first detector/dosimitier. Loved the fallout map you displayed. I'll try to see if I can find a good copy online. I live in Washington state, My background is detected at 0.12 usv/h which is lower than I expected as the map suggests the area is between 1 and 2. I was surprised to find my smoke detectors at contact, were only about double background. They are insignificant. On the other hand, do have some lantern mantles. Didn't have the Coleman brand, but do have the Aladdin brand for an Aladdin kerosene lamp. The mantle package in contact was about 12 usv/hr, so considerable, but not detectable at any real distance more than a foot away. Because I didn't know how strong the radiation was, I keep those in the cupboard over the fridge, so rarely get closer than 2 feet from them in the kitchen. Nice show. It will be unlikely for me to buy the detector you showed, even though a spectrum for isotope detection is quite cool.
The americium 241 in smoke detectors can be extremely active. You need to have the right detector to see it. If you have a detector that can see alpha radiation you will be surprised how active those little buttons can be. Also they give off very low energy gamma radiation.
@@RadioactiveDrew The $40 detector I bought has a glass GM tube and I didn't take the detector apart. Not sure the alpha sensitivity with a glass GM tube. Anyway, it was interisting to test anyway. It really detects the emission from those mantles.
The alpha radiation won’t be able to make it through that glass.
I live near Dawson Forest in Georgia. Lockheed left some nasty stuff there. The firehouse closest has a map outlining the hot spots.
That would be cool to check out.
Can you come to the areas surrounding Hanford Site? I’m sure you know of it since it’s the largest nuclear waste storage facility in the US. We have a major River next to it that is the Columbia Basin’s lifeline, and a lot of the west’s life line. We are smack dab between the old Umatilla Chemical Depot and Hanford. Lots of people here have rare blood cancers (I know at least two people with rare , chronic blood cancers). The rest of us seem to have autoimmune diseases. I’d like someone with your experience to take a look and see if it’s truly safe to be here. An older couple I’m related to by marriage, that worked there a long time ago lost three children and both had/have multiple cancers. We used to have to do drills as kids for both radioactive and chemical fallout. Nobody has ever paid attention to us or shared the story enough to get attention on us and get it solved. It’s really hushed. Actually the states of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, and Montana are all full of radioactive particles. 😂
It’s not known at what levels radiation begins to significantly increase cancer risk. Below 100 millisieverts, an increase in risk has not been shown to exist. However, by scaling the risk at higher doses down to lower doses, it has been estimated that 10 millisieverts of radiation exposure could increase the lifetime risk of an adult dying of cancer by about 0.05 percent. With a 21 percent overall lifetime risk of dying of cancer, 10 millisieverts of radiation exposure theoretically could raise the lifetime risk of dying of cancer to 21.05 percent. This is a small amount considering the benefits of medically needed imaging tests.
Those estimates sound like they are from the Linear No Threshold Dose model, which has a bunch of problems. Mainly that radiation risk doesn’t plot well in a linear graph.
I just got interested in your channel and I love your videos. They’re super interesting and shed light on a lot of things. I’m just curious, what’s the highest amount of radiation you’ve ever detected in person?
The highest level I’ve ever detected was from a family member that got injected with Tc-99m for imaging. It was crazy how radioactive they were. About 1 mSv/hr of gamma radiation, which is a decent amount to sit next to.
@@RadioactiveDrew That seems terribly excessive for the purposes of biological imaging. Surely modern sensors can achieve perfectly adequate resolution with vastly smaller quantities of radio-tracers/contrasts.
I'm from Billings, Montana! I like your videos
Love the beartooth mountains.
Greet's from Germany/Poland
I am a rockhound, and I would love to know what type of detector would be good for me to stay safe? We have lots of cinnabar and uranium mines not far from where I live.
Any suggestions on places to purchase radiation detectors and working survey meters at a good price
You ever think about Fukushima? C-137 was a major component released- probably too low level tho.
It wouldn’t have made it that far. The hydrogen explosion that Fukushima experienced is nothing compared to the nuclear weapons tests.
North of Paul, Idaho. Everyone has cancer in their family. Called cancer ridge. Very few live past 65 at least the people I know. Born in late 40s and into 50s.
My boy was at high school when a boy brought a rock from his driveway- the haz mat was calling to get it because of radiation.
I’m from that area
It is in Alaska as well they found it up there too
Can you recommend a detector for detecting radiation common from military activity? I fish around a base and there are warnings not to eat the fish. I have known people who worked out there that said am kinds of radioactive stuff was disposed of. Also loads of artillery is shot there. I just want to know areas you avoid plus i find it interesting.
Something affordable would be something like a Ludlum Model 3 with a 44-9 probe or the Radiacode 101. There are plenty of options out there but it’s hard to know what exactly to suggest without knowing the bases history.
Really interesting find. And nicely shot video. Keep it up!
Thanks...I'm glad people like the way these are shot.
I like your method of reporting without finger wagging. Were you able to locate the isotopes, isolate and remove it? Or was it over a widespread area?
I tried to remove some of the dirt in the crack of that rock to isolate the cesium 137. But I was unsuccessful in getting deep enough in that rock. I plan to go back with some different tools to help.
FWIW you can usually set an Android to simply not turn off the display, or always to not turn off the display when a background app (even a mudic player) is running.
Seems like this cheaper model did have that. I looked for a while. But it seems there’s an app that can override that function.
137Cs could have come from Fukushima as well, as it was detected reaching the west coast of the US in 2011.
I'm watching when the map appeared showing the fallout. From the looks of it it came from the north. Is that Russia's fallout? Do you have a similar map for Canada? I can remember from the early sixties that people here in East Texas were told not to drink the rain water or eat the snow. Stupid things were done by our own government back in those days including putting radiated material in Galveston's public drinking water to see what the effect would be on the population. It's one thing to have to deal with our our mistakes but having to deal with Russia's too. Too much.
I love my radiacode! Great to see more content with it, you did a great job explaining the risk levels 👍
Thanks. I'm really enjoying the Radiacode as well. Works great.
@@RadioactiveDrew how much does the radiacode cost?
Amazing stuff glad i found this channel 👍💯
Glad you found it as well.
very curious to know about the Nuke Testing done in Mississippi in the Salt domes, i've read accounts of "green radioactive foam" as a result of bomb testing there back in the 40s/50s
Never heard of this, thank you
On bob Lazar web site he sells sand turned green rock from the trinity test site if I remember right
What about the jet stream carrying Cesium 137 from Fukushima meltdown. Possible increased of rain over that area (Rocky Mountains) caused the cesium 137 deposit. Just a thought. Keep up the excellent work. Regards from Australia.
The jet stream didn’t carry cesium 137 over here from Fukushima. There have been 15-16 fallout clouds that made their way over from the Nevada Test site to Montana.
th-cam.com/video/IhA6uh5UyAQ/w-d-xo.html
I just discovered your channel. I'm hooked.
Andrew, can you do spectroscopy with the RadEye? I have a RadEye and I'm trying to figure out how to identify isotopes with it.
Radiacode ought to sponsor you for this vid if they haven't already....there are some places here in AZ I'd love to show you with that, btw.
You mentioned $50? That's for the app, I'm assuming? The device seems to run around 400 USD if you order direct.
Thermo Fisher does make an isotope identifier but it’s $20K or something like that. I know for sure the Radeye B20 doesn’t do gamma spectroscopy.
The $50 I was talking about was for a cheap Samsung phone that can run that app. The app is free and they are working on one for iPhone.
@@RadioactiveDrew Gotcha.
Pause the video where you have the screenshot of the gamma spectrum and it looks like your text and line pointing to 662 is actually much closer to 1000 keV.
Yeah, it was a mislabeling mistake.
Yeah I pass by this at least 3 times a week. I live in The Big Lie and have a few old timers talk about radiation warnings from back in the day. Now I'm gonna freak out all the tourists😂😂
That would be an interesting conversation with tourists.
If you make it back there, take a pry bar and open up some of those fractures in the rock beneath large, flat, exposed spots and look for concentrations of the isotopes from erosion
Your videos amazes me every time, it also amazes me that America has een big area of elevated readings of radioactivity and probably caused people back in the days to have elevated risks of cancer, "but we are not sure so let us speculate ;)"
Thank you for your amazing content videos i really learn a lot about radioactivity and elements its really interesting
U mentioned cancer...My passing comment is dont have sex with anyone who got the juice
It is unlikely, at best, to have caused any significant cancer increases. The average resident of Denver Colorado is exposed to more natural radiation than this at about 11.8 millisieverts a year. In fact, at this rate, if you were exposed to no other sources of radiation, you'd still be below the average for a US citizen (3 millisieverts a year) at 2.69 millisieverts. About half of that number for the average per year for a US resident is from natural sources, the other is from medical sources or man made sources (people living near coal and gas power plants are expired to a lot of radioactive material in the particulate discharge of said plants).
So while this level is higher than the average background radiation level of 0.1 to 0.2 microsieverts an hour, it's not significantly higher.