Radioactive roads, fossils and phosphate mining in Florida.

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    Geo>K0FF
    Mar 15, 2009
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    <http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/GeigerCounterEnthusiasts/conversations/messages/14666>
    A while back I did a report on a radioactive road that I had found
    in Las Vegas. The road material itself was radioactive but only in
    specific areas.
    http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/GeigerCounterEnthusiasts/message/428
     
    http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/GeigerCounterEnthusiasts/message/446
     
     
    Later I did a report on radioactive fossils that kept popping up at
    various rock and fossil shows around the country. The radioactive
    whale bones in particular seemed odd enough for me to add them to my
    collection and include them in the school display kit.
     
    http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/GeigerCounterEnthusiasts/message/10235
     
    http://www.qsl.net/k0ff/Radioactive%20Fossils/
     
    This last winter- 2009- our field trip took us to Florida for a
    month. Here we did some digging into various radioactive topics and
    "dug up" a possible connection between the radioactive roadbeds and
    the radioactive whale bones.
     
    It seems that central Florida is the phosphate mining capital of the
    world. The phosphate is treated with sulfuric acid and becomes the
    water soluble fertilizer that farmers use on their crops. This
    region supplies 75% of America's needs and 25% or the world's needs.
     
    The byproduct of phosphate mining and processing is phosphogypsum,
    and this is where the radioactive connection comes in.
     
    "*Phosphogypsum* refers to the gypsum
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gypsum> formed as a by-product
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/By-product> of processing phosphate
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphate> ore into fertilizer
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertilizer> with sulfuric acid
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sulfuric_acid>.
    Phosphogypsum is radioactive due to the presence of naturally
    occurring uranium <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium> and radium
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium> in the phosphate ore.
    Marine-deposited phosphate typically has a higher level of
    radioactivity than igneous phosphate deposits, because uranium is
    present in seawater.^[1]
    <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphogypsum#cite_note-HPS-0>"
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphogypsum

    Now the same marine deposits that supply the phosphates are home to
    numerous prehistoric fossils. So much so that this region in Florida
    is dubbed "Bone Valley"

    http://www.baysoundings.com/sum05/BoneValley.pdf
     
    We know from looking at the periodic chart of the Elements that
    radium is in the same column as calcium and barium. 
    Because of this chemical similarity, these elements tend to be
    readily replaced by one another in nature. We have seen many
    instances where barium crystal have had
    taken up considerable radium to become highly radioactive
    radiobarium. Apparently the radium is taken up by the bones as part
    of the fossilization process.
     
    The US EPA has forbidden the use of  phosphogypsum in most all
    applications, especially the robustly radioactive marine deposit
    kind. One exception appears to be in the use as fill in making roadbeds:
    http://www.baysoundings.com/sum02/behind.html
     
    We know that there is about a billion tons of this material
    stockpiled in Florida at the moment and 30 million more tons are
    added each year. I would expect that if the roadbed use is
    universally accepted, we will be noticing radioactive roadbeds all
    over the place soon.
     
     
     
    There is a small Phosphate Museum located in Mulberry FL:
     
    http://www.mulberrychamber.org/attractions.htm
     
     
    Keep those LENis handy
     
     
    Have fun
     
    Geo