How did they find it?
It is explained in the article.
"He said a search vehicle was driving past at 70 kilometres per hour on the Great Northern Highway when a detection device revealed radiation."
Missing radioactive capsule found in WA outback after frantic search
31–40 of 244 posts
Re: Missing radioactive capsule found in WA outback after frantic search
#32Earlier quoted context omitted.
Estimating iron ore grade on the fly as recently blasted ore beds are dumped through a load out into train carriages for transport to ocean side processing (further crushing, screening, fine grading and blending) and loading onto shipping. It's an 800 million tonne per year operation in W.Australia (somewhat larger than the US ~ 48 million tonne iron ore mining figures (IIRC)). The alternatives are to find something…
But the world needs more steel. To build more ships. The world needs more ships. To carry more ore and coal. Because the world needs more steel. Also to build buildings. This whole "economic" growth is just another bubble ready to pop, similar usefull to crypto in the long run. Destroyed the planet, for what..
... but for a beautiful moment in time we created a lot of value for shareholders!
edit: i'm just referencing the famous new yorkers cartoon - https://imgur.com/a/dHBy8hI - personally, i like steel.
Re: Missing radioactive capsule found in WA outback after frantic search
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because the output pulse from a Geiger–Müller tube is always of the same magnitude (regardless of the energy of the incident radiation), the tube cannot differentiate between radiation types. No "signature" detection possible with simple counters I'm afraid. They used trucks on the road with large doped sodium iodide crystal pack (tubes with a scintallation (flash) detector at the ends) that produce a second by secon…
Sounds like the sort of complex setup developed prior for other more exotic use cases...
Complex?
Seems straightforward enough in the geophysical instrumentation domain.
Exotic? Radiometric mapping has been around for 50+ years - Australia has mapped the entire country (size of mainland contiguous USofA) from aircraft with ~200m line spacing in that time (along with surveying other countries, Mali, Fiji, India|Pakistan border, elsewhere), Russia, South Africa, Finland, USofA also have radiometric survey teams.
It's handy for finding drums of radioactive waste in a Finnish forrest near the Russia border, for example, which was an actual contest | exercise some years ago.
Re: Missing radioactive capsule found in WA outback after frantic search
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Trophy in a clubhouse bar, slowly increasing the cancer risk of all the regulars.
Any greater risk of cancer than when bars used to allow smoking?
iirc the comments from the previous articles on this topic, then yes. storing the capsule a few meters away for extended periods of time will cause leukemia - a lot faster than smoke will cause lung cancer.
Re: Missing radioactive capsule found in WA outback after frantic search
#35> It was believed the capsule fell through the gap left by a bolt hole, after the bolt was dislodged when a container collapsed as a result of vibrations during the trip. You would imagine someone have thought of this failure mode
These have been used and regularly replaced since the 1970s and this is the first time one has been lost in transit. Yes, they can do better and hopefully will do so in the future with more rules, regulations and checks. But, see [1] - you'd imagine someone would have thought about the front of an oil tanker falling off. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirki_(tanker)
the front fell off: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3m5qxZm_JqM
Re: Missing radioactive capsule found in WA outback after frantic search
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sounds like the sort of complex setup developed prior for other more exotic use cases...
Which military based in Australia do you think helped by supplying this?
Australian civilian radiation services with backing of AGSO (Australian Geological Survey Organisation) are easily able to handle this all within Australia w/out reaching out to the Indians, Pakistani's, Iranians, Russians, South Africans, or other international nuclear agencies.
Re: Missing radioactive capsule found in WA outback after frantic search
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m not sure about mining, but in dredging it’s used to measure the density of the slurry in a pipe. It’s possibly something similar in mining.
Bang on - it's for density. You'll also see radioactive sources in household smoke alarms on a smaller scale to estimate smoke load in air, and in mineral exploration in downhole detectors mapping density of surrounding materials, in oil and gas measuring the density profiles of fluids as they flow past, etc. Flashlights are visible light spectrum sources, gamma emitters are similar in function ( Cs-137 emits a 32 Ke…
>You'll also see radioactive sources in household smoke alarms
Better to get another one if you still have one of those, they are not very good: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=DuAeaIcAXtg
Re: Missing radioactive capsule found in WA outback after frantic search
#38How did they find it?
The best part of the article: "The Australian Defence Force has been asked to verify the recovered capsule by checking its serial number."
So they're not certain they have found it, yet.
They could have found one of the other radioactive capsules lying about the Western Australia outback.
Re: Missing radioactive capsule found in WA outback after frantic search
#39BTW, there was an accident in Ukraine (Soviet Union at the time) related to a radioactive capsule that ended up in the wall of an apartment building https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kramatorsk_radiological_accide...
> The apartment was fully settled in 1980. A year later, an 18-year-old woman who lived there suddenly died. In 1982, her 16-year-old brother followed, and then their mother. [All from leukemia]. [...] A new family moved into the apartment, and their son died from leukemia as well.
> A child's bed was located directly next to the wall containing the capsule.
Re: Missing radioactive capsule found in WA outback after frantic search
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because the output pulse from a Geiger–Müller tube is always of the same magnitude (regardless of the energy of the incident radiation), the tube cannot differentiate between radiation types. No "signature" detection possible with simple counters I'm afraid. They used trucks on the road with large doped sodium iodide crystal pack (tubes with a scintallation (flash) detector at the ends) that produce a second by secon…
TFA mentions the truck was passing by at 70km/h, which is surprisingly quick.
You'd think that was quick, ... but generally this kind of thing would be done from a crop duster airframe flying at an industry standard 70m/sec (252 km/hr).
I'm guessing the local Perth geophysical survey companies that routinely fly magnetics and radiometrics were all fully engaged flying pre booked contract work .. so they dragged in a couple of white transit vans and fitted them out to get the job done.