RadWasteEngineer t1_jcat6nk wrote
Reply to comment by Bbrhuft in Radon is a monatomic gas, but its decay products are solids. After a decay, what happens to the individual atoms of the daughter elements? Do they stay suspended in the atmosphere or slowly rain out? by foodtower
Commercial tobacco is also fertilized with mined phosphate fertilizers that are naturally Rick in uranium decay series elements, including Po-210. It also turns out that the tobacco plant has an unusually high affinity (uptake factor) for polonium, and the leaves become enriched in polonium. Smoking those leaves is the most effective exposure pathway: inhalation. Put all that together and voilà: cancer.
Bbrhuft t1_jcaunob wrote
That's interesting. I always wondered where the Polonium-210 came from. I have a radioactive apatite from Brazil. In this case it contains radioactive thorium, but yes apatite (phosphate ore) can also contain uranium.
RadWasteEngineer t1_jcavmk1 wrote
Uranium decays to thorium decays to radium decays to radon, and so on. So any or that contains uranium will contain this huge suite of decay products as well.
What's especially interesting to me about tobacco is that it selectively removes polonium from all the others and puts it in the hapless smoker.
Bbrhuft t1_jcayi93 wrote
Wow, so it's biologically concentrating Po-210 like how Chernobyl mushrooms concentrate Cesium-137, or radioactive galena...
This will interest you. Here's a sample of radioactive galena I have from the Kateřina Coal Mine, Radvanice, Czech Republic.
Here's a close up photo...
https://www.mindat.org/photo-1144820.html
It looks like a bismuth specimen, due to its odd formation process, deposition from hot gas.
The Kateřina Coal Mine was a bizarre combination of a coal and uranium mine, that caught fire in the 1960s or 70s. Fumes from the burning coal seams deposited galena in cracks, which ended up contaminated with radioactive Lead-210, half life 22 years.
The specimen was likely collected in the 1990. The entire site was rehabilitated about 15 years ago, it's now a nice green park. Big difference from the hell scape of a burning radioactive coal mine.
RadWasteEngineer t1_jcaz3dh wrote
Yes, bioconcentration.
That's amazing about the burning coal mine forming galena from the lead. Nature is incredible.
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