My father was on the team that developed the implosion detonator so he would have been in Bayo Canyon (and was at Trinity). To his dying day in 1991, he would not talk about secrets.
Men today have it you say? While I agree there are some that are very loyal but not at the scale it was then. Which is why so many secrets have been leaked by so many who work for the federal government and/or top secret research projects. That was extremely rare back then.
21:39 ~ Good light hearted quip. The men and woman that worked out there must have been very confident in their work. The fact we can go in there and explore the area in a park setting is pretty astounding.
Those ruts were made by pre-war settlers who lived on the plateau in the summers. They dragged supplies up and down the canyons on sledges. Where the "differential dragged," that's from mountain bikes.
At 16:15 the groves are not from dragging the ‘differential’ but probably the waggons ‘King pin’. This is the large vertical pin that the waggon’s front axil turns around.
The depth of those ruts look like they were formed from wagon wheels at least initially, not really wide enough for heavy cargo vehicles with dual wheels like 2.5 / 5 ton trucks.
I know when you get up on the Oregon trail, you find ruts created by wagons. But there were no wagon trails down through Los Alamos. Definitely could be from loaded down Willys though!
The markers appear to define the corners of an area along with direction and distance to the next marker, A through F and back to A again. So the burried material is within the area, not necessarily at those corners. Something to look forward to on your next visit. By the way, I wonder if the tree roots tap into radioactive material and if they can transport trace elements. Might also be interesting to check the trees or other plants in that area.
That would be interesting to check for. Trees can make their way into about anything. But I think they put the radioactive material in a metal container and then filled it with concrete. Hopefully that would be enough to keep trees or other plants out.
If you want to test that out, the old Rocky Flats Plant site would be perfect. There's still plutonium and uranium in the soil around 6" - 2' down. That site was a nightmare when it was operating, so bad in safety that the FBI raided them over it.
@@RadioactiveDrewboth metal and concrete degrade with time and water, coupled with the fact that Los almos can get down to -18f, I wouldn't be surprised if the containment vessels had been breached, which would allow water ingress and egress giving trees access to contaminated material
@@Mike.The.Jeweler The people at Los Alamos are pretty bright you know. I'm sure they know a lot more about containment and how to do it than any commenter on this video.
Those rock ruts look like they are from wagon train on the northern part of the Santa Fe trail We have a lot of the same looking ruts both on the California trail and the Oregon trail
I grew up in Lockport New York and was interested in nuclear power in my youth. I have lived in Florida now for 44 years and am 75 years old. Several places you may want to investigate in your quest for finding nuclear waste spills: 1. Go to the KOA campground on route 104 in Lewiston NY. Look North and you will see a smokestack and a Marine in a guard shack. Radon gas is coming out of the tower and the Marine is guarding where nuclear matieral for the Manhatten project is buried. 2. The University of Buffalo had a nuclear reactor on campus that I have toured. I believe it was decommissioned in 1972. 3. In Lockport is the former Simon's Saw and Steel plant. Uranium pellets were machined there for the Manhatten project and the turnings fell into the cracks in the floor. Several buildings there are 'hot' and unusable to this day. 4. There is no building allowed along the Niagara River in an area called NiWanda Park. Nuclear matieral waste had been dumped along the shore 5. The chemistry lab in Lockport Senior High School had a geiger counter in 1965 with a rather dangerous test sample of nuclear matieral for calibration that was in a glass vial. It was dropped and broken on the lab floor and the matieral went into the cracks in the floor. 6. South of Buffalo closer to the Pennsylvania border is a small town called West Valley. A nuclear fuels reprocising center was built there and reprocessed both Uranium and Plutonium. Leaks in the containment structures there made radioactive ducks in the nearby river.
Love this content. I did shit like enter uranium mines when I was young and invincible. The mine dirt is actually a problem if you fall into it or contact it by sitting down. It comes with you when you leave and you have to wash and scrub to get back down to background levels.
@@RadioactiveDrew Yeah, we have both been there and done that. I used to keep my collection in a locked steel cabinet outside, next to the garage. I drilled holes into it to dissipate the radon gas.
It's nice to be young and invincible! A good scrubbing is recommended! A greater hazard is inhaling radioactive dust. For example, few things are as toxic as Plutonium....yet you could swallow a smooth capsule of shiny Pu metal and it would pass through you harmlessly. However, if you inhaled a smaller quantity, you would likely be dead before the day ends. The actual time to death would depend on the isotope and the concentration inhaled.
The stopping power of most materials is very high for alpha particles and heavy-charged particles. Therefore alpha particles have very short ranges. For example, the ranges of a 5 MeV alpha particle (most have such initial energy) are approximately 0,002 cm in aluminium alloy or approximately 3.5 cm in air. A thin piece of paper can stop most alpha particles. Even the dead cells in the outer layer of human skin provide adequate shielding because alpha particles can’t penetrate it. If you inhale, take intravenous, etc. Pu, it would indeed do serious damage to a person's innards. If you voluntarily swallowed (don't know why you would want to do that) a smooth capsule of Pu, it would pass through your digestive tract. It would not leave any traces behind and would not be in your body long enough to do any harm. If you were to inhale tiny particulate Pu, it would spread throughout your body, stay a long time and do a lot of damage. Please note that I am not recommending that anyone ingest, in any way, such material...not a big problem as Pu is (fortunately) one of the most controlled substances on Earth! @@Melanie16040
most of the rock is tuff which essentially compressed ash.. pumice-like but a bit softer and full of tiny quartz crystals.. from the volcano that produced the Jemez mountains and the Valles Caldera. From what I remember, the volcano was most recently active 50K years ago... apparently just dormant, not extinct.
There were some geothermal tests done at some point on account of the big ol' magma chamber down there, but I don't know how successful they were.. There are several hot springs in the Jemez, though.
The history lesson of these areas is wonderful. I was born in the 60's so the histoey of these places was still active in our minds back then. And to see some of these sites now is amazing! Im surprised its not still hot! Good to know though!
Those tracks could very well be wagon wheels from the 1800’s. Maybe heading to California during the gold rush. You find those same tracks on the Oregon Trail.
I’ve seen those tracks on the Oregon Trail as well. They look a bit different than these ones. Also I would imagine if it was some kind of historical site they would have something saying so. Maybe I missed it.
Plus wagons didn’t have differentials, and the center marks look perfect for a more modern vehicle, but that being said, they may have used a former wagon trail to follow around the valley. I’m in west Tennessee, and a lot of our road were former wagon paths.
@@RadioactiveDrewwagon wheels and horses then trucks then feet and mountain bikes. Rain and freeze/thaw cycles. Those ruts are all over Los Alamos. Tuff is very soft. You can dig into it with sticks and harder rocks. Native Americans in the area bored holes in it to anchor wooden beams for dwellings. Also, it’s “buy yo” canyon (Spanish pronunciation). The center rut wasn’t axles dragging. When the ruts got too deep for a mountain bike to fit through we ride the middle high spot. Same with hikers. Fun bike trail! Finally, background radiation increases with elevation. Those numbers you see are normal for 7000 ft. Less atmosphere to absorb cosmic rays. No kidding. If you want to find contamination, seek out the Los Alamos Sportsman’s Club. That canyon was used for artillery practice back in the day, so adding more lead from rifles, pistols and shotguns seemed practical.
That's a survey marker. It marks the perimeter of an area. The material isn't likely buried under the marker, but in the area that is marked out. The inscription tells you the direction and distance to the next marker.
@@RadioactiveDrew "S26 28 31E 205.62ft from B to C". is a surveyor's bearing and distance from this B marker to the next C marker. It is clearly a survey marker. Take a bearing of 151.52 deg from that marker (could be magnetic or true) and go 205.62 feet and you'll find the next "C" marker.
I really enjoy these vlogs! I would love to make it back out that way some time. I lived in the area back in the mid 90's when I was a kid. Keep up the great work!
Grats on finding that piece of radioactive material, thats so freakin satisfying. What an awesome thing. PS: do you know anything about the mine shaft that is behind the lawrence berkeley national lab? Theres an Adit in the hillside behind building 58, I can send you a picture. The one person that told me anything said that beyond a certain point there are no controls in place to allow someone to go further. I'm suuuure they used it for materials storage.
I did right as I was getting ready to upload the video. I didn’t find anything conclusive. I was getting some gamma peaks for Barium 133, which does come from Lanthanum 133. But the report I saw said they were using La-140. Since I couldn’t be 100% about it I decided to keep it out of the video.
I wouldn't want to eat any of the cattle that roamed the area. Have you ever been to Chicago to Red Gate Woods? Its a park The site contains buried radioactive waste from an early Manhattan Project. There is actually a marker monument there.
What's the hydrology of this place? You mention a caldera. Perhaps the radioactive materials were buried here because precipitation would not leach soluble radionuclides into the Rio Grande basin? I suppose they probably didn't have that kind of foresight.
All the rocks around here were created from volcanic ash that was turned into sedimentary rock through lithification because the groundwater and different cements flowed through the ash. It's all very porous and it doesn't hold water very well. There are lots of hot springs in the area, and being a near a dormant volcano you can almost guarantee that there is water being pushed to the surface. When they started this project they didn't understand very much about radioactive contamination and what it would do (look up Los Alamos plutonium injections and Los Alamos body snatchers) so I'm going to guess that they didn't take into consideration the geology of the land as a protection from radioactive contamination.
I wish you ran a spectrum on the metal you found in Baio canyon with the Radiacode101. That would be cool to see what isotopes where still present this long after being deposited there.
I still want to do that but I'm in the process of sourcing some lead bricks so I can cut more of the background radiation out and improve the signal a bit.
Awesome video. I went out there in 2017 but never made it to the lodge..... did make it to the trinity test site on the day it was open to the public. Really enjoyed that! Same day drove to the radio telescopes for their open house. Thanks for letting me live through your adventures
Back in the early 80's, I visited a restricted site in Nevada on official business. There was a small fenced area where some material from an accident was buried. One of my fellow enployees and I were inspecting the site when I heard a voice behind me say" please step away from the area." Looking behind me was a Caddilac Gage armored car wth some Air Force security snuffies pointing a loaded M-60 in my direction. We were apologized to later and told that the guards had been instructed that we had the appropriate clearances but they had not been notified in advance. If the fence says deadly force authorised, please take it seriously.
Nice. Would love to see if you notice many differences compared to 101. This is my first radiacode. Was surprised at how much less sensitive it is to beta than my SEI ranger when placed on fiestaware.
That metal flange on the one burial spot is more than likely just because a workman found it a decided to stick it on top for no reason other than it looks cool. As for the random scattering of the burial spots, simplest answer is probably just because they buried the biggest pieces exactly where they found them. Easier and safer than trying to move things around.
Hahahaha...I could see a worker adding that flange just to make it look cool. I need to dig deeper into the papers about this site to figure out why they chose those locations.
Do geiger counters themselves get contaminated? Like, over time and exposure to these sites, will his Rad-Eye start giving wrong measurements? Does it need to be regularly calibrated? If so, how?
Exposure to radiation generally doesn't make things radioactive. The exception to this is exposure to neutron radiation from an active reactor. All calibrated measuring devices must be periodically recalibrated. The devices he's using are likely not calibrated. A CPM counter is not calibrated.
These are very low levels of radiation. They have done multiple cleanups at the site to try and make it as safe as possible. The highest activity item you could find out there would be some uranium metal and even that isn't dangerously radioactive.
Another great video ! Thanks for creating it ! Have you done a video where you explored Snow Canyon by St. George Utah ? Apparently that is where they filmed the Conqueror in 1956 and many of the actors got cancer because that site was downwind of dirty bomb test done earlier... It could be interesting. In any event thanks for all of the interesting videos !
5:50 - that erosion may have started out as vehicle tracks, now it's likely continued as a result of foot traffic -hence the uneven balance from left to right.
@@RadioactiveDrew Ah yeah, that would be quite the weight to schlep around with. Having it at home to analyse samples there would work, but i guess taking things home from the places you visit is often frowned upon anyway.
interested to know what you did with the hot bits you found, should you be handling them so casually at 2074 CPM? I hope you dispose of this stuff safely or leave it there?
These are pretty far away from a dangerous level of radiation. I find uranium glazed ceramics in antique shops all the time that are easily in the 30,000 CPM range.
The vehicles at the guard station were mobile urinalysis testing buses. The trail erosion is mostly side by side horse traffic. Locals ride from the stables near by. I play and have been playing in all of the canyons for decades. Nice little video.
Mobile urine analysis sounds so weird to me. It’s amazing that they are so concerned about that. Other people have said the say thing about the trail erosion.
@@RadioactiveDrew When you have people who are cleared to access the highest levels of classification and also people working with plutonium and lots of other stuff, its kind of important to make sure people aren't baked/zooted at work...
What is your take on radioactivity levels in the Egyptian sarcophagi in the pyramids Drew? Nile delta black sand deposits are known to contain huge reserves of U and Th.
Does anybody get nervous when that dosimeter starts clicking?? I hope you stay healthy dude. Very cool videos though! I had a book called America Ground Zero it was all about the nuclear tests. Creepy shit! I wonder if that firewood was giving off any radioactive Byproduct. Anyways I subscribed be safe be safe
It's normal for a Geiger counter or CPM counter to randomly click. This is just normal background radiation. If you live in volcanic (igneous) areas, the background radiation is higher than in sedimentary rock areas. If you have a granite countertop, it can keep your counter busy. Cigarette smoke is radioactive but the chemical poisons will kill you quicker. Radiation needs to be put into a proper perspective. The uneducated public often has an irrational fear of it. Hollywood is largely responsible for stories of nuclear bombs making a city radioactive for millions of years. Hiroshima and Nagasaki started rebuilding in a matter of weeks and millions of people live there today with normal background radiation levels.
On this same line we will be able to use the rocky flats sight in about 28,000 years. Cherry Creek runs through rocky flats and into Denver. The soil inside the fence at rocky flats is contaminated 280 times the allowable limit. I would be interested to see tests done on the river banks inside the Denver city limits for radio active in the soil.
@@RadioactiveDrew I got that information through the freedom of information act when I was in occupational safety and health school some years ago. Rocky Flats is the only place on earth where radiation was proven in a court of law to have caused the cancer of a twelve year old girl that lived in housing within the fence. The housing was built on some sort of landfill.
Hello, Where did you get the footage of the implosion tests? The one where is shows the x-ray of the actual compression forces. I can't find it anywhere.
It’s from a French film about their development of the atomic bomb. I can’t remember if off the top of my head. I posted a link to it before when someone else asked the question. So somewhere in the comments.
You should explore the upper water canyon on west Jemez. There is a trail that goes from the road uphill and follows the stream. It’s very near SR 4 For the love ofGod don’t pick stuff up!! Not advised
Another interesting and informative video Drew! Cheers and yes you lucked out with the gate and not having to hike in and out! The gasket could be the top of a storage tank* and it was low level liquid waste pumped in?
Any possibility those ruts are made by wagon wheels ? Wagon wheels have steel tires and concentrate all their weight in a small area. You can see ruts like that in ancient roadbeds.
I think Los Alamos is just inside the eastern rim of the Valles Caldera, the third oldest of the large supervolcanos in the US. Pretty sure it's still active too, just as Yellowstone is.
Will spots like trinity ever be radioactive free again or is it like one detonation and boom done forever how many places on this planet are to hot to even go near
Yes, one day they will be free of the radiation caused by the leftover fission products. There will always be environmental radiation that is naturally occurring.
@@RadioactiveDrew I just feel like castle bravo all these test it’s like there’s a max load on how much we can do nukes and it’s power fascinate me but it’s also terrible we have these weapons your videos are amazing
Fascinating report on interesting visit. The first artefact you found was the shell of an Amphenol cable connector, not surprising to find there. Did you retain the shards you discovered? Is it ok to do that, from a federal site? But good on ya, anyway! Keep on researching this stuff!
More than likely it’s going to read around 15,000 to 50,000 CPM. That’s been my experience with uranium glazed ceramics. Of course that reading comes from a circular detector around 2.5 inches across. So total activity can be a lot factoring in surface area of the item.
Drew are used to work for DOD. I think I know what that metal piece was it you first picked up. You could not dig there if you wanted to, the markers indicate the center or corner location of all the disposed soils. Under the marker buried under about 4 feet of dirt is a cement dome cover. So if you dug deeper you would hit solid cement layer.
I kinda think those mobile testing trucks are the "golden retrievers" a friend that worked at Los Alamos mentioned...a urine (drug) testing lab on wheels for surprise HRP whizz quizzes.
Pretty sure the second medallion had that collar around it cause they just use lengths of pipe driven into the ground and thats the end w the union flange… If I’m right by chance u probably placed your radco aimed into 4ft or more of concrete
Cool implosion footage in the beginning. I never saw that before. The security vehicles are what we affectionately call golden retrievers. They are for drug testing/urine sample collection.
My dad was born in Los Alamos in 1942. He has a lot of storys about scetchy things all over the area. It would be interesting to hike around with a giger counter... Also potentially Cancer inducing
@@RadioactiveDrewGo to Acid Canyon there's a trail there Open to the public It was where they originally dumped a lot of radioactive waste. They didn't inform anybody about it for years and then I guess in the '80s or '90s they decided to clean it up finally. There's been a scientist that went out there and said it still contaminated though. But I bet it'd be a great place for a video.
No one really allowed me. The place is open to the public. Usually that gate is open all day as well. I just happened to go out there on the weekend when its usually closed all day.
@Joshrwms87 the FX3 looks very cool. I can’t reason getting rid of my A7S3. I also picked up the A7R5 as a b camera and to use as a stills camera and a timelapse camera. The A7S3 does an amazing job with timelapse. But sometimes I need a higher megapixel camera for some of the shots I want to do.
@@RadioactiveDrew oh for sure! Well keep it up man your content looks great! I actually started watching you recently because I just landed an interview with the Los Alamos National Laboratory to be a media guy for them so I've been researching everything about it.
@Joshrwms87 I think someone similar hit me up a couple months ago. But then I was busy with that 70mm Oppenheimer thing. I’m hoping to do some videos with the lab one of these days.
Those trucks at the beginning are mobile drug testing units, and some of the ruts started from vehicles but are deep from foot traffic and mountain bikes, you can see the tracks in what you thought was from a differential. Later on the tracks are not parallel and more obvious. Some foot trails in Bandelier are waist deep from only foot traffic.
Yeah someone else said they were mobile drug testing stations, which seems kind of overkill but I guess they need it. Also thanks for the additional info on the ruts.
The older hat I had started to rip on the brim and the plastic in there cracked. I would still be wearing that hat if that didn’t happen. That OME hat was one of my favorite hats I’ve ever had. Mainly because it never got sweat stains from hiking around in the desert and fit my head very well. I got the hat when I bought my suspension system for my Tacoma.
@@RadioactiveDrew I hope this one serves you just as well. If anyone can make a hat to last those conditions its us Aussies. OME originated just down the road from my home town. The original hat you had sparked some good memories for me, my old man used to have the same hat.
Well I got a little bit of a different video planed for the movie release. A week ago I let my Patreon supporters know that I’m going to be one of the 70mm projectionists for the show. So I’ll be giving a look behind the scenes of the 70mm show and some thoughts on the film. I’m excited to see it.
I’ve been filming some more. I still have videos to release from a month back. I’m kind of backlogged. This next week I’m planning on getting a couple out.
Could you explain how CPM translates to REM/RAD ? Or maybe compared to a chest or dental X-ray ? Maybe a video idea ? Or point to a source for an explanation for laymen ?
I want to do a video about the different readings because a lot of people have questions about that. CPM or counts per minute or counts per second is the counting of particles that are detected from a radioactive decay. Whereas REM, Rad, Gray, Sieverts is about dose or the amount of energy deposited into the human body. So a conversion from CPM to REM is a bit tricky. But as a starting point...on my Radeye B20 normal background radiation is 35 CPM or .08 uSv/hr. The subject of radiation measurements is a tricky one that gets pretty wild when you get into activity and trying to convert that into dose or into a weight measurement of a given radioactive material. So yes...a video will be coming to lay all this out as best I can.
It's a very complicated theme. CPM or CPS is just what the device see. Without an energy compensation method (hardware or software) these values can't be converted into other units at all. Gray allow us understand the amount of energy given to a substance. Sievert or rem shows the harm to a human (and related to an economical loss to make a human healthy again). Measuring gamma approach gives us the equation 1Gy=1Sv=100rem. Whereas alpha measuring approach gives us 1Gy=20Sv=2000rem. Also we should distinguish effective and personal dose. They have the same units but different values, about 20-30% difference because of different initial conditions. And it is just a beginning of a rabbit's hole. So, enjoy with it. 😉
That would be helpful. I watch a lot of the radioactive disaster RUclips channels and they use different terminology such greys . One thing is for sure - Russia fried a lot of their own people and continue to do so.
@@scottyV1000, Russia (or any other country with the same meaning) today is not a theme of this channel. Speaking about units, we should distinguish radiometry and dosimetry. The first one gives us the radiation quantity, and the second one gives us radiation harm to people. I hope @Radioactive Drew will explain all more detailed.
So, it’s interesting you only got 700 cpm from the one piece. To put that into perspective, my pancake detector against an original red fiestaware plate will hit around 2000 cpm. But doing the REM calculations, you would have to duct tape it to your chest for a year to raise the biological risk past the several-sigma risk of long term effects. Taking the detector on high altitude jet flights around 30,000 ft picked up neutrons with up to 6000 cpm. So the values you’re seeing are pretty low. Here, with a very sensitive 1 inch x 8 inch Russian tube adjusted for the most sensitive voltage, the cpm from radon in the air is 70 cpm. Getting within a few feet of the fiestaware, it will go off scale.
Usually my Radeye B20 and my Ludlum Model 14C with the 44-9 detector will get between 20,000-50,000 CPM with uranium glazed ceramics...depending on the ceramic and what color of red/orange the piece is.
@@RadioactiveDrew Yeah, my new GCM pancake detector loves the fiestaware. Although the numbers are questionable, they are in the "ballpark". However, if you do the math, you would have to duct tape the saucer to your chest for a year just to get over 1 "sigma" statistically. You will not approach the OSHA maximum yearly limit for non-rad workers. These things are so sensitive, I killed one accidentally leaving it on while it went through an airport security bag X-ray. Killed that $200 detector DEAD.
@@desertengineer1 I trust the numbers coming from my Radeye B20. The calibration has held up over the last 7 years. I compared the Radeye B20 to a new freshly calibrated Radeye B20ER and they read exactly the same.
i wish i could go out to these places i love history and have been into radiation since i was about 12 i would be interested in knowing if you were able to get a gamma spec off those pieces
Nothing super reliable. I was getting some peaks for Barium 133, which is a decay product of Lanthanum 133. A report I read about the tests made it seem like they used Lanthanum 140. So I'm not sure where the La-133 would come from. It could be mixed in with the La-140 when they made it. I'm not sure about the process to make that isotope.
That shape charge implosion footage in the beginning is impressive, I'd like some more (and with actual data or explanation)
It’s from a French film on their nuclear program back in the late 1950’s. I’ll try and post the link later.
@@RadioactiveDrew yes, please :D help another "radiation enthusiast" out, that would be grand
@@braindecay9477 here's the video...its all in French but still cool to watch. ruclips.net/video/cx8hj7SO1tI/видео.html
@@RadioactiveDrew very cool, thanks man :)
@@RadioactiveDrew Awesome! Cheers, legend.
My father was on the team that developed the implosion detonator so he would have been in Bayo Canyon (and was at Trinity). To his dying day in 1991, he would not talk about secrets.
Men today don't have that loyalty. I hope he is RIP.
@@sgtsmif Men today have it but don't speak about it.
If someone doesn't speak, that makes it hard to convery doesn't it?
Because it is all lies and he is ashamed he is part of a big hoax!…😂😂😂😂
@@oregonherb7538 a hoax ? wtf kinda " Kool aid " are you drinking ?
Men today have it you say? While I agree there are some that are very loyal but not at the scale it was then. Which is why so many secrets have been leaked by so many who work for the federal government and/or top secret research projects. That was extremely rare back then.
21:39 ~ Good light hearted quip. The men and woman that worked out there must have been very confident in their work. The fact we can go in there and explore the area in a park setting is pretty astounding.
Those ruts were made by pre-war settlers who lived on the plateau in the summers. They dragged supplies up and down the canyons on sledges. Where the "differential dragged," that's from mountain bikes.
Thanks, that makes so much more sense. Was looking at them thinking how deep they are for the width.. now it all makes sense to me.👍
At 16:15 the groves are not from dragging the ‘differential’ but probably the waggons ‘King pin’. This is the large vertical pin that the waggon’s front axil turns around.
It could be from wagons.
Yeah that's what I was thinking that it was wagon trails
There are ruts like this along portions of the Santa Fe Trail from all the wagons that traveling the same path over the rocky areas.
Yes, those are wagon wheel ruts from historic homesteader trails. Nice!
Yea the width of the ruts are too narrow for modern vehicles and there are several areas on the applegate trail where I live just like those ruts.
The depth of those ruts look like they were formed from wagon wheels at least initially, not really wide enough for heavy cargo vehicles with dual wheels like 2.5 / 5 ton trucks.
I know when you get up on the Oregon trail, you find ruts created by wagons. But there were no wagon trails down through Los Alamos. Definitely could be from loaded down Willys though!
@@TheonedjneoWouldn't have thought a Willys would have that much ground clearance.
The markers appear to define the corners of an area along with direction and distance to the next marker, A through F and back to A again. So the burried material is within the area, not necessarily at those corners. Something to look forward to on your next visit. By the way, I wonder if the tree roots tap into radioactive material and if they can transport trace elements. Might also be interesting to check the trees or other plants in that area.
That would be interesting to check for. Trees can make their way into about anything. But I think they put the radioactive material in a metal container and then filled it with concrete. Hopefully that would be enough to keep trees or other plants out.
If you want to test that out, the old Rocky Flats Plant site would be perfect. There's still plutonium and uranium in the soil around 6" - 2' down.
That site was a nightmare when it was operating, so bad in safety that the FBI raided them over it.
@@RadioactiveDrewboth metal and concrete degrade with time and water, coupled with the fact that Los almos can get down to -18f, I wouldn't be surprised if the containment vessels had been breached, which would allow water ingress and egress giving trees access to contaminated material
@@Mike.The.Jeweler the ground would prevent the canisters from getting that low in temperature.
@@Mike.The.Jeweler The people at Los Alamos are pretty bright you know. I'm sure they know a lot more about containment and how to do it than any commenter on this video.
Those rock ruts look like they are from wagon train on the northern part of the Santa Fe trail
We have a lot of the same looking ruts both on the California trail and the Oregon trail
I was about to say that, wasn't sure which trail but I recognized them as wagon train tracks.
I grew up in Lockport New York and was interested in nuclear power in my youth. I have lived in Florida now for 44 years and am 75 years old. Several places you may want to investigate in your quest for finding nuclear waste spills: 1. Go to the KOA campground on route 104 in Lewiston NY. Look North and you will see a smokestack and a Marine in a guard shack. Radon gas is coming out of the tower and the Marine is guarding where nuclear matieral for the Manhatten project is buried. 2. The University of Buffalo had a nuclear reactor on campus that I have toured. I believe it was decommissioned in 1972. 3. In Lockport is the former Simon's Saw and Steel plant. Uranium pellets were machined there for the Manhatten project and the turnings fell into the cracks in the floor. Several buildings there are 'hot' and unusable to this day. 4. There is no building allowed along the Niagara River in an area called NiWanda Park. Nuclear matieral waste had been dumped along the shore 5. The chemistry lab in Lockport Senior High School had a geiger counter in 1965 with a rather dangerous test sample of nuclear matieral for calibration that was in a glass vial. It was dropped and broken on the lab floor and the matieral went into the cracks in the floor. 6. South of Buffalo closer to the Pennsylvania border is a small town called West Valley. A nuclear fuels reprocising center was built there and reprocessed both Uranium and Plutonium. Leaks in the containment structures there made radioactive ducks in the nearby river.
i love your videos dude. i work as an RCT training for NRRPT and CHP and I was inspired partly by your videos to do some more radiological tourism
Love this content. I did shit like enter uranium mines when I was young and invincible. The mine dirt is actually a problem if you fall into it or contact it by sitting down. It comes with you when you leave and you have to wash and scrub to get back down to background levels.
I’ve had experience with contamination before…always fun to figure out exactly what it is.
@@RadioactiveDrew Yeah, we have both been there and done that. I used to keep my collection in a locked steel cabinet outside, next to the garage. I drilled holes into it to dissipate the radon gas.
It's nice to be young and invincible! A good scrubbing is recommended! A greater hazard is inhaling radioactive dust. For example, few things are as toxic as Plutonium....yet you could swallow a smooth capsule of shiny Pu metal and it would pass through you harmlessly. However, if you inhaled a smaller quantity, you would likely be dead before the day ends. The actual time to death would depend on the isotope and the concentration inhaled.
@@donkerouac3746 It would be quite bad to ingest Pu-238... Even a solid piece of Pu-239 would do immense damage due to being an alpha emitter.
The stopping power of most materials is very high for alpha particles and heavy-charged particles. Therefore alpha particles have very short ranges. For example, the ranges of a 5 MeV alpha particle (most have such initial energy) are approximately 0,002 cm in aluminium alloy or approximately 3.5 cm in air. A thin piece of paper can stop most alpha particles. Even the dead cells in the outer layer of human skin provide adequate shielding because alpha particles can’t penetrate it.
If you inhale, take intravenous, etc. Pu, it would indeed do serious damage to a person's innards. If you voluntarily swallowed (don't know why you would want to do that) a smooth capsule of Pu, it would pass through your digestive tract. It would not leave any traces behind and would not be in your body long enough to do any harm. If you were to inhale tiny particulate Pu, it would spread throughout your body, stay a long time and do a lot of damage.
Please note that I am not recommending that anyone ingest, in any way, such material...not a big problem as Pu is (fortunately) one of the most controlled substances on Earth! @@Melanie16040
most of the rock is tuff which essentially compressed ash.. pumice-like but a bit softer and full of tiny quartz crystals.. from the volcano that produced the Jemez mountains and the Valles Caldera. From what I remember, the volcano was most recently active 50K years ago... apparently just dormant, not extinct.
Good to know. Thanks for the additional info.
There were some geothermal tests done at some point on account of the big ol' magma chamber down there, but I don't know how successful they were.. There are several hot springs in the Jemez, though.
This channel is awesome. Great work Drew
Thanks...I'm glad so many people enjoy watching the videos.
The history lesson of these areas is wonderful. I was born in the 60's so the histoey of these places was still active in our minds back then. And to see some of these sites now is amazing! Im surprised its not still hot! Good to know though!
Depending on what they use for isotopes to carry out their tests kind of determines how hot the site is decades afterwards.
Those tracks could very well be wagon wheels from the 1800’s. Maybe heading to California during the gold rush. You find those same tracks on the Oregon Trail.
I’ve seen those tracks on the Oregon Trail as well. They look a bit different than these ones. Also I would imagine if it was some kind of historical site they would have something saying so. Maybe I missed it.
Plus wagons didn’t have differentials, and the center marks look perfect for a more modern vehicle, but that being said, they may have used a former wagon trail to follow around the valley. I’m in west Tennessee, and a lot of our road were former wagon paths.
@@lawnjockey21 could have been anything sticking down the middle of the wagon, like maybe something that the wheels pivoted on.
@@RadioactiveDrewwagon wheels and horses then trucks then feet and mountain bikes. Rain and freeze/thaw cycles. Those ruts are all over Los Alamos. Tuff is very soft. You can dig into it with sticks and harder rocks. Native Americans in the area bored holes in it to anchor wooden beams for dwellings. Also, it’s “buy yo” canyon (Spanish pronunciation). The center rut wasn’t axles dragging. When the ruts got too deep for a mountain bike to fit through we ride the middle high spot. Same with hikers. Fun bike trail!
Finally, background radiation increases with elevation. Those numbers you see are normal for 7000 ft. Less atmosphere to absorb cosmic rays. No kidding.
If you want to find contamination, seek out the Los Alamos Sportsman’s Club. That canyon was used for artillery practice back in the day, so adding more lead from rifles, pistols and shotguns seemed practical.
@@lawnjockey21 the lynch pin that holds the draw arm for the horses would be iron would give similar mark
That's a survey marker. It marks the perimeter of an area. The material isn't likely buried under the marker, but in the area that is marked out. The inscription tells you the direction and distance to the next marker.
I don't think its the same as a survey marker. I run into a bunch of those out and about.
@@RadioactiveDrew "S26 28 31E 205.62ft from B to C". is a surveyor's bearing and distance from this B marker to the next C marker. It is clearly a survey marker. Take a bearing of 151.52 deg from that marker (could be magnetic or true) and go 205.62 feet and you'll find the next "C" marker.
I really enjoy these vlogs! I would love to make it back out that way some time. I lived in the area back in the mid 90's when I was a kid. Keep up the great work!
Thanks.
Grats on finding that piece of radioactive material, thats so freakin satisfying. What an awesome thing.
PS: do you know anything about the mine shaft that is behind the lawrence berkeley national lab? Theres an Adit in the hillside behind building 58, I can send you a picture. The one person that told me anything said that beyond a certain point there are no controls in place to allow someone to go further. I'm suuuure they used it for materials storage.
Did you test those fragments with the radiacode?
I did right as I was getting ready to upload the video. I didn’t find anything conclusive. I was getting some gamma peaks for Barium 133, which does come from Lanthanum 133. But the report I saw said they were using La-140. Since I couldn’t be 100% about it I decided to keep it out of the video.
I wouldn't want to eat any of the cattle that roamed the area. Have you ever been to Chicago to Red Gate Woods? Its a park The site contains buried radioactive waste from an early Manhattan Project. There is actually a marker monument there.
I’ve been told about it but haven’t had the chance to visit the site yet.
What's the hydrology of this place? You mention a caldera. Perhaps the radioactive materials were buried here because precipitation would not leach soluble radionuclides into the Rio Grande basin? I suppose they probably didn't have that kind of foresight.
All the rocks around here were created from volcanic ash that was turned into sedimentary rock through lithification because the groundwater and different cements flowed through the ash. It's all very porous and it doesn't hold water very well. There are lots of hot springs in the area, and being a near a dormant volcano you can almost guarantee that there is water being pushed to the surface.
When they started this project they didn't understand very much about radioactive contamination and what it would do (look up Los Alamos plutonium injections and Los Alamos body snatchers) so I'm going to guess that they didn't take into consideration the geology of the land as a protection from radioactive contamination.
I wish you ran a spectrum on the metal you found in Baio canyon with the Radiacode101. That would be cool to see what isotopes where still present this long after being deposited there.
I still want to do that but I'm in the process of sourcing some lead bricks so I can cut more of the background radiation out and improve the signal a bit.
That thing you picked up at 15:00 looks like a connector of some sort
That's what I was thinking as well.
Awesome video. I went out there in 2017 but never made it to the lodge..... did make it to the trinity test site on the day it was open to the public. Really enjoyed that! Same day drove to the radio telescopes for their open house. Thanks for letting me live through your adventures
I’ve been to the VLA before as well. Very cool place to visit.
That entire area out there is super interesting. Great film work as always!
Thanks.
Thank you for the explore Drew, thank you for taking us along.
Glad you enjoyed it.
Back in the early 80's, I visited a restricted site in Nevada on official business. There was a small fenced area where some material from an accident was buried. One of my fellow enployees and I were inspecting the site when I heard a voice behind me say" please step away from the area." Looking behind me was a Caddilac Gage armored car wth some Air Force security snuffies pointing a loaded M-60 in my direction. We were apologized to later and told that the guards had been instructed that we had the appropriate clearances but they had not been notified in advance. If the fence says deadly force authorised, please take it seriously.
It’s a good day when a new Drew video drops and my Radiacode 102 arrives the same day.
I also got a Radiacode 102 this last week. Going to be using it on some videos this week.
Nice. Would love to see if you notice many differences compared to 101. This is my first radiacode. Was surprised at how much less sensitive it is to beta than my SEI ranger when placed on fiestaware.
So far it seems just as good as the 101 model.
A excellent video on Los Alamos Atomic bomb testing area
Nice video, Drew! So beautiful places around there. Glad to know the place was cleaned carefully contrary to our 100-150uSv/h available for people. 😏
Hi Drew! Those mobile testing units at the beginning of the video are drug tests! Clearance holders are required to submit urine drug tests often.
Others have told me the same thing. To someone that doesn't know what they are and knowing the history of the site...I had a lot of questions.
@@RadioactiveDrew Yup! Understood. I visit those often.
That metal flange on the one burial spot is more than likely just because a workman found it a decided to stick it on top for no reason other than it looks cool.
As for the random scattering of the burial spots, simplest answer is probably just because they buried the biggest pieces exactly where they found them. Easier and safer than trying to move things around.
Hahahaha...I could see a worker adding that flange just to make it look cool. I need to dig deeper into the papers about this site to figure out why they chose those locations.
Do geiger counters themselves get contaminated?
Like, over time and exposure to these sites, will his Rad-Eye start giving wrong measurements? Does it need to be regularly calibrated? If so, how?
Exposure to radiation generally doesn't make things radioactive. The exception to this is exposure to neutron radiation from an active reactor. All calibrated measuring devices must be periodically recalibrated. The devices he's using are likely not calibrated. A CPM counter is not calibrated.
@@stargazer7644 Ahhh, I see. Thanks for the explanation! 👍
How bad is that 2050 CPM number in scheme of things? At what point would you consider reporting these fragments to the park management?
These are very low levels of radiation. They have done multiple cleanups at the site to try and make it as safe as possible. The highest activity item you could find out there would be some uranium metal and even that isn't dangerously radioactive.
@@RadioactiveDrew I see, thanks for the reply it's appreciated!
I didn’t even know you could go visit the place! Another place to add on my bucket list! Thanks for the video!
No problem...hope you get to go out and explore it a bit.
Thanks drew this was so interesting my friend greetings from Scotland to you...
Glad you enjoyed it. I need to make my way out there.
Another great video ! Thanks for creating it ! Have you done a video where you explored Snow Canyon by St. George Utah ? Apparently that is where they filmed the Conqueror in 1956 and many of the actors got cancer because that site was downwind of dirty bomb test done earlier... It could be interesting. In any event thanks for all of the interesting videos !
Glad you liked the video. Yes, I’m planning on going to Snow Canyon to look for remnants of fallout.
Another great video Drew! Super informative. Now when I go back to visit I'll need to go check this out.
Glad you enjoyed it.
5:50 - that erosion may have started out as vehicle tracks, now it's likely continued as a result of foot traffic -hence the uneven balance from left to right.
Super cool you at least got that one nice shrapnel! Awesome Video.
Thanks.
Have you considered getting a larger NaI detector with an MCA to do some isotopic analysis on samples? Thanks for the videos!
I really want to get a bigger probe. But I want the setup to be mobile so I can take it out in the field with me.
@@RadioactiveDrew Ah yeah, that would be quite the weight to schlep around with. Having it at home to analyse samples there would work, but i guess taking things home from the places you visit is often frowned upon anyway.
Hey. I was just there last year in Los Alamos. Cool little town. So much history.
interested to know what you did with the hot bits you found, should you be handling them so casually at 2074 CPM? I hope you dispose of this stuff safely or leave it there?
These are pretty far away from a dangerous level of radiation. I find uranium glazed ceramics in antique shops all the time that are easily in the 30,000 CPM range.
Perhaps they buried the materials near to where they located, so they didn't have to move the waste too far?
That's possible...but its pretty far from the shot sites.
The vehicles at the guard station were mobile urinalysis testing buses. The trail erosion is mostly side by side horse traffic. Locals ride from the stables near by. I play and have been playing in all of the canyons for decades. Nice little video.
Mobile urine analysis sounds so weird to me. It’s amazing that they are so concerned about that. Other people have said the say thing about the trail erosion.
@@RadioactiveDrew When you have people who are cleared to access the highest levels of classification and also people working with plutonium and lots of other stuff, its kind of important to make sure people aren't baked/zooted at work...
What is your take on radioactivity levels in the Egyptian sarcophagi in the pyramids Drew? Nile delta black sand deposits are known to contain huge reserves of U and Th.
I would need to look into it because I’m not familiar with the story.
Was at the Nevada range long ago my radiation monitor was showing less than 60, digg down in the ground about a foot and got readings well over 240.
great video drew (comment for the algorithm)
Thanks for your sacrifice to the algorithm gods.
Does anybody get nervous when that dosimeter starts clicking?? I hope you stay healthy dude. Very cool videos though!
I had a book called America Ground Zero it was all about the nuclear tests. Creepy shit!
I wonder if that firewood was giving off any radioactive Byproduct. Anyways I subscribed be safe be safe
The wood wasn’t radioactive…I checked everything in the camping area. Thanks for the sub.
It's normal for a Geiger counter or CPM counter to randomly click. This is just normal background radiation. If you live in volcanic (igneous) areas, the background radiation is higher than in sedimentary rock areas. If you have a granite countertop, it can keep your counter busy. Cigarette smoke is radioactive but the chemical poisons will kill you quicker. Radiation needs to be put into a proper perspective. The uneducated public often has an irrational fear of it. Hollywood is largely responsible for stories of nuclear bombs making a city radioactive for millions of years. Hiroshima and Nagasaki started rebuilding in a matter of weeks and millions of people live there today with normal background radiation levels.
Thanks Drew for another interesting video 🙏🏻
No problem. Glad you liked it.
On this same line we will be able to use the rocky flats sight in about 28,000 years. Cherry Creek runs through rocky flats and into Denver. The soil inside the fence at rocky flats is contaminated 280 times the allowable limit. I would be interested to see tests done on the river banks inside the Denver city limits for radio active in the soil.
I want to explore that area. I’ve done a little hiking along the fence but I didn’t see any anomalous radiation levels.
@@RadioactiveDrew I got that information through the freedom of information act when I was in occupational safety and health school some years ago. Rocky Flats is the only place on earth where radiation was proven in a court of law to have caused the cancer of a twelve year old girl that lived in housing within the fence. The housing was built on some sort of landfill.
Cool stuff. Subscribed!👍
Those ruts are crazy. Hundreds of thousands of vehicles made those.
I love such things very much, especially with regard to radioactive contamination
Hello,
Where did you get the footage of the implosion tests? The one where is shows the x-ray of the actual compression forces. I can't find it anywhere.
It’s from a French film about their development of the atomic bomb. I can’t remember if off the top of my head. I posted a link to it before when someone else asked the question. So somewhere in the comments.
You should explore the upper water canyon on west Jemez. There is a trail that goes from the road uphill and follows the stream. It’s very near SR 4
For the love ofGod don’t pick stuff up!! Not advised
Thanks for the suggestion...I'll have to check it out next time I'm out that way.
Another interesting and informative video Drew! Cheers and yes you lucked out with the gate and not having to hike in and out! The gasket could be the top of a storage tank* and it was low level liquid waste pumped in?
I don’t think they had liquid waste from the tests. I think it’s more of a thing to make sure rain water doesn’t move the material around.
Any possibility those ruts are made by wagon wheels ?
Wagon wheels have steel tires and concentrate all their weight in a small area. You can see ruts like that in ancient roadbeds.
From all the other comments I’ve seen I think it is wagon wheel ruts.
I really like your camping rig. Being off the ground is a good idea.
It’s kind of like being up in a treehouse.
That satellite going past orion was cool as hell.
Yeah, it was cool to see it. Glad I was able to capture it.
I think Los Alamos is just inside the eastern rim of the Valles Caldera, the third oldest of the large supervolcanos in the US. Pretty sure it's still active too, just as Yellowstone is.
That's interesting. I wonder if there are any hot springs in the area. Up here in Montana we have a decent amount of them.
@@RadioactiveDrew Yup, Jemez Hot Springs !
I’m going to have to check it out next time I’m there.
@@RadioactiveDrew Quite a few hot springs on the western side. And, the locals call the ash rock, tuffa.
Wow what an awesome topic, hadn't thought of visiting. I'll check that site out as soon as I can. Thanks!
Will spots like trinity ever be radioactive free again or is it like one detonation and boom done forever how many places on this planet are to hot to even go near
Yes, one day they will be free of the radiation caused by the leftover fission products. There will always be environmental radiation that is naturally occurring.
@@RadioactiveDrew I just feel like castle bravo all these test it’s like there’s a max load on how much we can do nukes and it’s power fascinate me but it’s also terrible we have these weapons your videos are amazing
Fascinating report on interesting visit. The first artefact you found was the shell of an Amphenol cable connector, not surprising to find there. Did you retain the shards you discovered? Is it ok to do that, from a federal site? But good on ya, anyway! Keep on researching this stuff!
I did keep what I found so I could do some more tests on the metal. There wasn’t any signage that said nothing could be taken.
@@RadioactiveDrew great! Hope that the metals turn out to be unusual. Do keep on with your radioactive adventures!
I just bought a peice of vintage orange fiestaware because of your videos
Welcome to the club.
@@RadioactiveDrew although I can't tell you how spicy it is because I don't have a Geiger counter yet
More than likely it’s going to read around 15,000 to 50,000 CPM. That’s been my experience with uranium glazed ceramics. Of course that reading comes from a circular detector around 2.5 inches across. So total activity can be a lot factoring in surface area of the item.
Wagon ruts. See those on the Oregon and Santa Fe trails. Pre-automobile era.
Thanks super gate dude...good looking out. - Surry Virginia
Drew are used to work for DOD. I think I know what that metal piece was it you first picked up. You could not dig there if you wanted to, the markers indicate the center or corner location of all the disposed soils. Under the marker buried under about 4 feet of dirt is a cement dome cover. So if you dug deeper you would hit solid cement layer.
I kinda think those mobile testing trucks are the "golden retrievers" a friend that worked at Los Alamos mentioned...a urine (drug) testing lab on wheels for surprise HRP whizz quizzes.
Pretty sure the second medallion had that collar around it cause they just use lengths of pipe driven into the ground and thats the end w the union flange…
If I’m right by chance u probably placed your radco aimed into 4ft or more of concrete
Yeah I was noticing the metal around the edge of the concrete which makes me think its a cylinder that goes down a couple feet.
All week I've been meaning to reach out and say hi. I'm in Los Alamos and was going to suggest prospecting in Bayo. Next time!
I’m sure I’ll be back there again.
Cool implosion footage in the beginning. I never saw that before. The security vehicles are what we affectionately call golden retrievers. They are for drug testing/urine sample collection.
Hahahaha…golden retrievers, good one.
That thing that you thought was a seal or a gasket was just a pipe flange that someone threw over the top of that marker
Weird thing to just throw on there.
I had to replay the beginning because I had no idea what you said lol
My dad was born in Los Alamos in 1942. He has a lot of storys about scetchy things all over the area. It would be interesting to hike around with a giger counter... Also potentially Cancer inducing
I bet there is some really interesting things to find out there. Especially in the areas that are controlled by the lab.
@@RadioactiveDrewGo to Acid Canyon there's a trail there Open to the public It was where they originally dumped a lot of radioactive waste. They didn't inform anybody about it for years and then I guess in the '80s or '90s they decided to clean it up finally. There's been a scientist that went out there and said it still contaminated though.
But I bet it'd be a great place for a video.
5:51 ~ Wow, I'm not sure there are many vehicles that could clear that and have such a narrow track.
The Willy's Army Jeep has a pretty narrow wheel base that I could see making those tracks.
I've seen videos on the Oregon trail, looks like the same wagon tracks.
Very nice video. Thank you.
Glade you liked it.
love your series.
I’m glad to hear that.
It's really nice of them to allow you to do that.
No one really allowed me. The place is open to the public. Usually that gate is open all day as well. I just happened to go out there on the weekend when its usually closed all day.
What camera are you filming on? Footage looks great!
Sony A7S3, usually with the Sony 16-35mm f2.8 lens.
I thought so. Looked very "Sony" to me. I regularly shoot on the FX3.@@RadioactiveDrew
@Joshrwms87 the FX3 looks very cool. I can’t reason getting rid of my A7S3. I also picked up the A7R5 as a b camera and to use as a stills camera and a timelapse camera. The A7S3 does an amazing job with timelapse. But sometimes I need a higher megapixel camera for some of the shots I want to do.
@@RadioactiveDrew oh for sure! Well keep it up man your content looks great! I actually started watching you recently because I just landed an interview with the Los Alamos National Laboratory to be a media guy for them so I've been researching everything about it.
@Joshrwms87 I think someone similar hit me up a couple months ago. But then I was busy with that 70mm Oppenheimer thing. I’m hoping to do some videos with the lab one of these days.
Those trucks at the beginning are mobile drug testing units, and some of the ruts started from vehicles but are deep from foot traffic and mountain bikes, you can see the tracks in what you thought was from a differential. Later on the tracks are not parallel and more obvious. Some foot trails in Bandelier are waist deep from only foot traffic.
Yeah someone else said they were mobile drug testing stations, which seems kind of overkill but I guess they need it. Also thanks for the additional info on the ruts.
Those ruts are similar to those along The Oregon Trail made by wagon wheels.
Yeah, that’s what other people have been telling me.
Wow that Radeye B20 is intense! Cool finds with the shrapnel too!
Thanks. It took a while of walking around before I found all that stuff.
Could the tracks in the rock also be from wagons that went West? They carved out rocks along the Oregon Trail similarly to the truck tracks.
It is very possible that’s what they are.
Have you ever been to the sight of the sl-1. Or are you familiar with the event
I’m familiar with the event but I’ve never been there.
What's the story behind your Old Man Emu/ARB hats? I remember you having an older old man emu one too. Very Australian product for you to have :P
The older hat I had started to rip on the brim and the plastic in there cracked. I would still be wearing that hat if that didn’t happen. That OME hat was one of my favorite hats I’ve ever had. Mainly because it never got sweat stains from hiking around in the desert and fit my head very well. I got the hat when I bought my suspension system for my Tacoma.
@@RadioactiveDrew I hope this one serves you just as well. If anyone can make a hat to last those conditions its us Aussies. OME originated just down the road from my home town. The original hat you had sparked some good memories for me, my old man used to have the same hat.
@@Flyingdinosaur69 no kidding...you Aussies sure know how to make some tough stuff.
Do you already have your tickets for “Oppenheimer” Drew? And will you review the film on your channel? Would love to hear it! 💣
Well I got a little bit of a different video planed for the movie release. A week ago I let my Patreon supporters know that I’m going to be one of the 70mm projectionists for the show. So I’ll be giving a look behind the scenes of the 70mm show and some thoughts on the film. I’m excited to see it.
You should have tested that fireplace at the camp site for any radioactivity.
could that one with the gasket be due to some for of "liquid" pumped into a buried tank? Sorry, new to this stuff...but so neat to see. Thanks!
05:44 looks like the old wagon wheel tracks I have explored.
Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for watching.
great, and what isotopes your radiocode have found?
Any chance those are old wagon tracks through the rocks. You can find some similar along certain ones in New Mexico and Colorado.
Neat site. You need an Ortec Detective for these places…only about $180,000…
Ive been waiting for some new content.
I’ve been filming some more. I still have videos to release from a month back. I’m kind of backlogged. This next week I’m planning on getting a couple out.
@@RadioactiveDrew awesome to hear
Could you explain how CPM translates to REM/RAD ? Or maybe compared to a chest or dental X-ray ? Maybe a video idea ? Or point to a source for an explanation for laymen ?
I want to do a video about the different readings because a lot of people have questions about that. CPM or counts per minute or counts per second is the counting of particles that are detected from a radioactive decay. Whereas REM, Rad, Gray, Sieverts is about dose or the amount of energy deposited into the human body. So a conversion from CPM to REM is a bit tricky. But as a starting point...on my Radeye B20 normal background radiation is 35 CPM or .08 uSv/hr. The subject of radiation measurements is a tricky one that gets pretty wild when you get into activity and trying to convert that into dose or into a weight measurement of a given radioactive material. So yes...a video will be coming to lay all this out as best I can.
It's a very complicated theme. CPM or CPS is just what the device see. Without an energy compensation method (hardware or software) these values can't be converted into other units at all. Gray allow us understand the amount of energy given to a substance. Sievert or rem shows the harm to a human (and related to an economical loss to make a human healthy again). Measuring gamma approach gives us the equation 1Gy=1Sv=100rem. Whereas alpha measuring approach gives us 1Gy=20Sv=2000rem. Also we should distinguish effective and personal dose. They have the same units but different values, about 20-30% difference because of different initial conditions. And it is just a beginning of a rabbit's hole. So, enjoy with it. 😉
That would be helpful. I watch a lot of the radioactive disaster RUclips channels and they use different terminology such greys . One thing is for sure - Russia fried a lot of their own people and continue to do so.
@@scottyV1000, Russia (or any other country with the same meaning) today is not a theme of this channel.
Speaking about units, we should distinguish radiometry and dosimetry. The first one gives us the radiation quantity, and the second one gives us radiation harm to people. I hope @Radioactive Drew will explain all more detailed.
So, it’s interesting you only got 700 cpm from the one piece. To put that into perspective, my pancake detector against an original red fiestaware plate will hit around 2000 cpm. But doing the REM calculations, you would have to duct tape it to your chest for a year to raise the biological risk past the several-sigma risk of long term effects. Taking the detector on high altitude jet flights around 30,000 ft picked up neutrons with up to 6000 cpm. So the values you’re seeing are pretty low. Here, with a very sensitive 1 inch x 8 inch Russian tube adjusted for the most sensitive voltage, the cpm from radon in the air is 70 cpm. Getting within a few feet of the fiestaware, it will go off scale.
Usually my Radeye B20 and my Ludlum Model 14C with the 44-9 detector will get between 20,000-50,000 CPM with uranium glazed ceramics...depending on the ceramic and what color of red/orange the piece is.
@@RadioactiveDrew Yeah, my new GCM pancake detector loves the fiestaware. Although the numbers are questionable, they are in the "ballpark". However, if you do the math, you would have to duct tape the saucer to your chest for a year just to get over 1 "sigma" statistically. You will not approach the OSHA maximum yearly limit for non-rad workers. These things are so sensitive, I killed one accidentally leaving it on while it went through an airport security bag X-ray. Killed that $200 detector DEAD.
@@desertengineer1 I trust the numbers coming from my Radeye B20. The calibration has held up over the last 7 years. I compared the Radeye B20 to a new freshly calibrated Radeye B20ER and they read exactly the same.
i wish i could go out to these places i love history and have been into radiation since i was about 12 i would be interested in knowing if you were able to get a gamma spec off those pieces
Nothing super reliable. I was getting some peaks for Barium 133, which is a decay product of Lanthanum 133. A report I read about the tests made it seem like they used Lanthanum 140. So I'm not sure where the La-133 would come from. It could be mixed in with the La-140 when they made it. I'm not sure about the process to make that isotope.
Awesome video.
Thanks.
So what actually was buried ? Like shards of metal or scraps from the blast site ?
I would assume part of the very active bits like Strontium 90, uranium metal or something along those lines.