I have been following every-ones debates about radioactive cooling. I don’t claim to be a physicist but I do have questions.
Super volcanoes have spewed forth massive amounts of deep magma in the past . Is Yellowstone National park decidedly more radioactive? If that’s to close to the surface there was a catastrophic deep magma upwelling in Siberia hundreds of millions of years ago. Is the magma material in Siberia more radioactive? I’m just asking?

digh - 02 December 2009 12:20 AM

I have been following every-ones debates about radioactive cooling. I don’t claim to be a physicist but I do have questions.
Super volcanoes have spewed forth massive amounts of deep magma in the past . Is Yellowstone National park decidedly more radioactive? If that’s to close to the surface there was a catastrophic deep magma upwelling in Siberia hundreds of millions of years ago. Is the magma material in Siberia more radioactive? I’m just asking?

if your neutrino detector can tell what direction the neutrinos are coming from, then you stand some chance of finding the source. perhaps there is a map, somewhere, of neutrino anomaly by location on earth’s surface?

vansig - 19 April 2010 03:57 AM

digh - 02 December 2009 12:20 AM

I have been following every-ones debates about radioactive cooling. I don’t claim to be a physicist but I do have questions.
Super volcanoes have spewed forth massive amounts of deep magma in the past . Is Yellowstone National park decidedly more radioactive? If that’s to close to the surface there was a catastrophic deep magma upwelling in Siberia hundreds of millions of years ago. Is the magma material in Siberia more radioactive? I’m just asking?

if your neutrino detector can tell what direction the neutrinos are coming from, then you stand some chance of finding the source. perhaps there is a map, somewhere, of neutrino anomaly by location on earth’s surface?

Neutrinos are mainly, AFAIK, useful for fusion detection. In any case, good luck with detection of direction! It’s barely possible to pick up one in a gazillion that blows on through, and that’s after using a planet or two to filter out every other signal, or hundred or so tons of liquid Neon, etc.
Radioactivity detection on the spot by Geiger counters is quite a bit easier (gamma rays, & other ionizing radiation). 
Here’s a nice summary of techniques available:
http://australianmuseum.net.au/Radioactive-dating
Also see this interesting PDF of an aerial survey of Northern Ireland:
http://nora.nerc.ac.uk/8926/1/Young.et.al.AtlanticIreland_LowResolution.pdf

The decay chains of U-238 and Th-232 produce electron anti-neutrinos. These are the geo-neutrinos so-hotly disputed in this thread.
But the background level of anti-neutrinos is mainly due to beta decays in nuclear reactors. These may be detected via the inverse beta decay reaction, at a threshold of 1.8 MeV.

In fact i think a directional detector for electron anti-neutrinos is possible, because the “delayed coincidence signature” should indicate momentum, but i’m not sure whether this is resolved in current detectors.
—http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KamLAND

Yes, you’ll be detecting a very small number of neutrinos. Most neutrinos passing through the Earth emanate from the Sun, (and trillions pass through the human body each second). and there are also cosmic sources.

digh - 02 December 2009 12:20 AM

Is Yellowstone National park decidedly more radioactive?

dont know. but, radon gas release seems to be associated with volcanic eruption:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v288/n5786/abs/288074a0.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taal_Volcano
http://www.springerlink.com/content/272381601455451j/
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007AGUFM.V11C0751L

and indoor radon levels at yellowstone are available

“Park County has a predicted average indoor radon screening level greater than 4 pCi/L (pico curies per liter)”
—http://www.city-data.com/city/Yellowstone-National-Park-Wyoming.html#ixzz0nqzNO5OD

vansig - 14 May 2010 12:07 AM

“Park County has a predicted average indoor radon screening level greater than 4 pCi/L (pico curies per liter)”
—http://www.city-data.com/city/Yellowstone-National-Park-Wyoming.html#ixzz0nqzNO5OD

4 pCi/L equals 148 Bq/m³, and
150 Bq/m³ is the EPA maximum before mitigation is required. So, yes it’s entirely plausible that radiation levels at Yellowstone are higher.