[NHCOLL-L:5906] Re: FW: [RCAAM] radioactive minerals

[Michael Kieron]

Hi,

Just to put my  two cents in. First, autunite and carnotite are rather common minerals. Autunite/meta-autunite is ubiquitous in New England pegmatites and both are abundant all over the Colorado Plateau. There are tens of thousands of these minerals in museums and private collections in the world. The main concern with either of these minerals is that they easily dehydrate and flake. If kept in a poly bag or another airtight container in a wooden or metal drawer they pose little health risk in the quantity you have. Our geology drawers are 1/8" metal or have 3/4" wood fronts. My geiger counter does not pick up anything beyond background with the drawers closed or a foot away open (except directly over a large specimen) even with a number of the minerals in each drawer.

On a side note, at some point in the past a health and safety inspector had the radioactive minerals heaped in old metal cabinet outside the general mineral collection. The funny thing is that only the brightly colored secondary uranium minerals were removed and the much more radioactive and uglier primary uranium minerals like uranpyrochlore, betafite, samarskite, and such were ignored. 

-Mike Kieron


Michael Kieron, Assistant Curator
Museum of Natural History
and Cormack Planetarium
Roger Williams Park
1000 Elmwood Avenue
Providence RI 02907
401.785.9457 x246
Fax: 401.461.5146
www.providenceri.com/museum


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