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Hello, all

I regret to inform you that uranium 234 is a nuclear explosive: https://www.bnl.gov/isd/documents/43872.pdf This is not the form I first saw these neutron cross sections, they were earlier ones and had absorption and fission lines printed on the same graph. Fission exceeds absorption in the range of 1 - 5 million electron volts (MeV). Nubar, the number of neutrons emitted per fission, ranges between 2.5 and 3 in the relevant energy range. You can compare uranium 234 with known nuclear explosives and prove it to yourselves.

When I first saw this I thought, "This stuff is a nuclear explosive! Shouldn't this be classified?" but I looked at the url and it said .gov. Then I read an article which specifically mentioned thorium 230 and they said that although cross sections for isotopes 235 and above were correct, those 234 and below were as much as 20% off. Given that the explosive nature of neptunium 237 and plutonium 238 were hidden until 2002, which way would you bet they're off? I thought "This too!?? Is this some kind of a joke?" Thorium is a different chemical element than uranium and has different properties, for example it dissolves in water in situations where uranium will not.

There are porous, insoluble uranium deposits where the uranium does not dissolve in water, one of these is the common sandstone carnotite. Water flows through it and thorium escapes. Uranium 234 escapes as thorium 234, half life 25 days. It then emits two electrons, two neutrinos, and two gamma rays and decays into uranium 234. Fortunately, one of the gamma rays is at 1.415 MeV, making this water easy to track.

The reason I came to SummitPost.org is "Guiness World Records 2011", page 32-33. They showed the awesome beauty of Antelope Canyon in Arizona, with an amazing wind-carved vortex. Antelope Canyon is a slot canyon where soft carnotite sandwiched between layers of tougher lava erodes. Though the carnotite does not dissolve in water, it is easily carved by wind and of course, water. The world record is to the Colorado Plateau, which has 10,000 slot canyons. This was researched by SummitPost.org and verified by the "Guiness Book of World Records" staff. If you can get six grams of uranium from each one, you would have enough to make an atomic bomb. Or it might be possible in an area with a lot of carnotite to get 60 kilograms; my estimate is that this is a critical mass.

Obviously, SummitPost.org has a large, worldwide database of slot canyons which the Government can use to intercept a nuclear attack before it even gets out of the ground. I urge you to turn this over to the IAEA. Also, there are other minerals in other deposits, so if you know where any of this material is located, notify the Sheriff of the county it's in and have him lock it down (Part of the "art" of Project Zeus, named after the Nike missile interceptor, is to figure out which cop to call. Hint: some of these Sheriffs don't know they're sitting on an atomic bomb, and they have a pressing need to know.)

Thank you in advance,

Michael C. Emmert

Dude, you need to get laid more often.

Oh, I almost forgot. Did you read the link with the post? - Michael C. Emmert (call me Mike)

Michael C. Emmert wrote:I regret to inform you that uranium 234 is a nuclear explosive: https://www.bnl.gov/isd/documents/43872.pdf This is not the form I first saw these neutron cross sections, they were earlier ones and had absorption and fission lines printed on the same graph. Fission exceeds absorption in the range of 1 - 5 million electron volts (MeV). Nubar, the number of neutrons emitted per fission, ranges between 2.5 and 3 in the relevant energy range. You can compare uranium 234 with known nuclear explosives and prove it to yourselves.

No, I can't. In case you didn't notice, "SummitPost is a collaborative content community focused on climbing, mountaineering, hiking and other outdoor activities", we're no nuclear scientists. And even though I happen to have a degree in chemistry, I still don't understand this. Yes, I clicked on the link and read part of the article, but concluded that it might as well have been written in Chinese - way over my head.

Oh no, I'm headed to the Colorado Plateau this weekend. Hope it doesn't explode while I'm there. If I see more than 60kg of rock though I'll be sure to notify the local sheriff. I'm sure it will be a complete shock to him to here there are rocks in the area.

Hello, rgg;

Project Zeus is a multidisciplinary effort involving physics, chemistry, geology, meteorology (yes, wind transport), and all kinds of things. I'm not an expert in any of these things. I think it's better if you're not.

This effort certainly involves mountaineering. It takes knowledge and equipment to get into these slot canyons.

And it involves chemistry. Please go over the way these minerals form. It's actually not very much more complicated than the stain at the bottom of your teacup. It's simple solution chemistry.

And about physics. I know it looks complicated, but if you concentrate on the graphs, it's all there. Anybody can read a graph.

Now, I'm 100% sure this stuff will go off. But let's suppose I'm wrong.

So what?

But if I'm right, this means somebody could blow up a city with it. To stop them, all you have to do is tell law enforcement where it is.

I urge you to go back over this and view it as chemistry. Do these materials separate from porous, insoluble uranium deposits? Do they go somewhere? Where? And this is where mountaineering comes in. LOOK at these areas and try to determine where the water flows. Usually uranium will condense out of solution if the water becomes anoxic, such as running through a marsh or a bog or something like that. Phosphorous will also fix the uranium, not artificial phosphorous fertilizer because that hasn't been around long enough.

Thank you for posting, and admitting that it's a little complex.

- Michael C. Emmert (call me Mike)

Hello, stinkysox77;

There are a lot of rocks in all kinds of areas. If you have a Geiger counter, it's very easy to tell if a sample of uranium is U-238 or U-234. The alpha particle released by U238 has an energy of 4.26975 million electron volts (MeV). The alpha particle released by U-234 has an energy of 4.8598 MeV.

Thanks a lot for asking. There's too much information in Project Zeus to display all of it in one post.

Two people have already found this material purely by accident. In 1973, Mr. J C Thakur walked into the United States Embassy in Kathmandu, Nepal, and offered to sell us the enemies' atomic bomb. They turned him down!! Mr. David Hahn, then maybe 13 or 14 years old, found some of this stuff, I am assuming he was amazed that the alpha energy was wrong, looked it up, and found out he had U-234 separated from the other isotopes. Can you imagine how exciting such a discovery would be for a kid that age? He tried to build a reactor out of it, realized the cross sections were wrong, and shut the reactor down. A month later he turned it all over to police, but instead of not believing him, they did not understand him. Poor kid almost blew himself up.

Make sure you tell the Sheriff what KIND of rocks you find. It makes a big difference

Thanks for posting.

Yours truly, Michael C. Emmert (call me Mike).

I liked that guy in the pink shirt better. (Mel somebody? I think he was dating a model from the Land's End catalogue.)


(For anyone who's new around here, a search of "Mel Torino" in the forums will explain the above reference.)

Michael C. Emmert wrote: it's very easy to tell if a sample of uranium is U-238 or U-234. The alpha particle released by U238 has an energy of 4.26975 million electron volts (MeV). The alpha particle released by U-234 has an energy of 4.8598 MeV.

[quote="Michael C. Emmert"]Hello, stinkysox77;

rgg wants some simple way to know how U-234 is a nuclear explosive without posting off-topic in Chinese. I'm going to do my best here, and I think starting with the alpha energy of U-238 and U-234 is a good way. Notice that the alpha particle given off by U-234 has higher energy than the one given off by U-238. That's because it's unstable. Another clue to the instability of U-234 vs. U-238 is their half-lives, for uranium 234 it's 2.455 X 1065 years (245,500 years) and for U-238 it's 4.468 X 10^9 years (4 billion 468 million years, later half lives will be disclosed with scientific notation, it's easier to type.)

The known nuclear explosive and thermal reactor fuel U-235's half life is 7.08 X 10 ^ 8 years. The reason it's a known nuclear explosive is that it has an odd number of neutrons. Neutrons spin, and if there's an odd number of them, then one of them has an unmatched spin. This makes U-235 and Pu-239 unstable against low energy neutrons with about the same energy as the thermal temperature of a normal reactor, a few electron volts at most. The unmatched neutron tries to snatch at the unpaired free neutron.

The hidden factor here (which is available in the link I posted) is the number of neutrons given off per fission. This depends on the energy of the neutron hitting the actinide (all this stuff chemically are actinides). The graph is called "nubar" so you can find it in the Brookhaven paper. Energy of the incident neutron is on the x-axis and number of neutrons given off per fission is on the y-axis. Notice that nubar is higher for U-234 than it is for known explosive U-235. However, the unpaired neutron gives U-235 a slightly higher cross section. These tend to balance out. The situation is the same for Pu-238 compared to Pu-239, and they have about the same critical mass, about 10 kilograms. That's where I get my estimate of 60 kg critical mass for U-234. U-234 has a little lower critical mass than that, but I'm stuck with one significant figure and need to round it off. 60 kg.

Neutrons are the glue that holds the nucleus together, so for any given element, if there are more neutrons the isotope is more stable and if there are less neutrons the isotope is less stable. That explains the seeming paradox that isotopes with fewer neutrons give off more neutrons when they fission.

Fission is higher than absorption for all actinides between one and five million electron volts. Nubar makes the difference. U-238 can be a nuclear explosive if fed neutrons by something else, like an H-bomb. That's why nuclear proliferators want the H-bomb, it sets off vastly cheaper explosives.

I think I can go a little more into this topic but I think this is a big enough dose for now. The topic of this forum is mountaineering and related topics such as slot canyons. Go find this stuff.

Thanks, MIke.

So you're telling me there's weapons grade uranium in Colorado Plateau and all I have to do is go to each of the 10,000 slots and collect 6 grams of it from each canyon? And with uranium 234 making up .0055% naturally found uranium this should be super easy, I'm only going to need to haul roughly 109 kg of pure uranium out each canyon to achieve this. Seems like a totally plausible weekend project that no one will notice.

Howdy, stinkysox77;

Yes, I am telling you there's weapons grade uranium in the Colorado Plateau. And I am worried that maybe somebody just might go around collecting this material.

55 parts per million might sound like it's not very much, but do the math. That's 55 kilograms per 1000 tons of uranium. You're almost there. Some of these deposits of carnotite have up to 147,000 tons of uranium. Take a look at how big some of these carnotite deposits are and remember it only takes a lump about the size of a football.

By coincidence, the Iranians have about a thousand tons of uranium in their ores. The process would have to be 100% efficient, and that never happens. Part of the Iranian nuclear deal calls on all ores imported into Iran to be inspected, so they can't make a bomb out of this. They do have complicated implosive devices so they can set off less than a bare sphere critical mass. Fortunately, their God forbids this.

Nobody noticed David Hahn picking up enough of this stuff to make a reactor. I'm hoping by publishing this, if somebody IS doing this, somebody will indeed notice. If people don't know what it is, they won't know to say anything. One of my first thoughts on this was, "Suppose this is so secret the cops don't even know about it. Then, how can they be guarding it?"

I don't think you understand that this does not need to be enriched. It's already enriched. It separates from the rest of the uranium because it spends 25 days as a DIFFERENT ELEMENT with increased solubility in water. You should be able to find it by tracking the water, which glows at 1.415 MeV gamma rays.

Good luck!

-Michael C. Emmert

Thorium does dissolve in water at low temperatures:

http://www.wipp.energy.gov/library/cra/2009_cra/references/Others%5CLangmuir_Herman_1980_Mobility_of_Thorium_in_Natural_Waters_at_low_Temperatures.pdf

It's how this stuff is transported. It dissolves in water in situations where uranium will not. That's how you get isotope separation, during it's 25 days as thorium 234 it gets washed into streams.

I just got notified that my computer session is about to close. Have a nice day, all

-Michael C. Emmert

Howdy, folks;

I have a paper on uranium ore materials:
[url]
http://www.dangerouslaboratories.org/radore.html[/url]

This is quite a bit less dense than some of the other papers I have posted. The primary ore minerals uraninite and pitchblende (really the same material, combined UO2 and UO3, general formula U3O8, with different crystal structures) are likely forms in which U-234 are found. This condenses from water containing dissolved uranium when the water goes anoxic, such as flowing into a marsh or bog. Uraninite has a fine crystal structure, pitchblende a coarser structure. It is quite possible that the U-234 might look like some of the secondary minerals. You have to look at the context in which the rock occurs.

Secondary uranium ore minerals form the source rock for the uranium 234. There needs to be a lot of it for this process to operate. These minerals are brightly colored and quite beautiful. they occur in yellow, orange, and green.

I believe that carnotite is the most likely source rock for nuclear explosives minerals. It usually is a bright yellow sandstone. Carnotite is not fluorescent, which kind of surprised me because it's so bright. Carnotite is common on the Colorado plateau. It is very soft and easily carved by wind and water into spectacularly beautiful shapes. It's chemical formula is K2O*2UO3*V2O5*nH20; 50-55% U3O8.

Tyuyamunite, CaO*2UO3*V2O5*nH20, is like carnotite except that calcium substitutes for the potassium of carnotite. It is slightly greenish yellow and fluoresces green.

Torbernite and meta-torbernite, CuO*2UO3*P2O5*nH2O, are a bright emerald color and fluoresce with a weak green.

Autunite, Cao*2UO3*P2O5*nH2O, is predominantly lemon yellow or sulphur yellow or occasionally apple3 green and has a bright yellow fluorescence in ultraviolet light. It's fluorescence can fool you into thinking there's more than there is. I have told several politicians that the materials "glow in broad daylight" so this was kind of amusing to find out about. What I meant was they glow in gamma rays at 1.415 MeV. Now I find out that some of it looks like the fictional material Kryptonite found in Superman comix.

Uranophane, CaO*2UO3*2SiO2*6H2O, is found with torbernite and autinite.

Schroeckingerite is easily water soluble and so does not form nuclear weapons minerals. It's fairly rare.

This paper is much easier to read and more fun and more on topic for this site than the Brookhaven paper. I had to publish the Brookhaven paper so that you could figure out for yourselves that U-234 is a nuclear explosive and to be on the lookout for it. Thank you in advance for looking for it.

Have a nice day- Michael C. Emmert

Howdy, all;

This is a site about refreshing outdoor activity that keeps you healthy and in shape. I have to admit I'm somewhat of a couch potato. I moved a little over a month ago and there was no computer lab in my new place, so most days I ascend to the Carnegie Library of Homestead (Pa.) It's a very steep climb and I found out what rotten shape I'm in. Well, I've persevered and have shed some pounds. My old doctor must be pleased. It'll probably take another month or two for this near-daily climb to start getting easier.

My next link that I'm sure you'll enjoy is to the "Radioactive Boy Scout", David Hahn:

https://harpers.org/archive/1998/11/the-radioactive-boy-scout/

This has been presented as a kind of urban adventure. The outdoors angle is presented as Mr. Hahn driving around the shoreline of Lake Michigan looking for pitchblende for his Merit Badge program, which was to collect all 92 elements. Fantastically, he pulled it off!! He even found microscopic samples of technetium and promethium. These only exist naturally as fission products of uranium and sometimes thorium. These materials have a spontaneous fission reaction that's pretty rare. More rarely they are produced by cosmic rays.

But I don't see how he could have made any kind of reactor unless he had some kind of fuel. He apparently got this from the Northern Peninsula of Upper Michigan. There are huge piles of bright yellow sand that was scraped out of Lake Superior during the Ice Age.

Hahn said he loaded half a trunk full of pitchblende. I googled his car and did a little simple math. Assuming void space and contaminants, and being stuck with one significant figure, I figure he had about a ton of this stuff (the raw calculation was quite a bit more). Pitchblende is very dense, about 10 grams/cm^3, so his springs on his suspension must have been pretty compressed.

Now, going around the woods collecting a large quantity of this mineral to me qualifies as an outdoor adventure. To those of you who have climbed Mt. Everest or K-2 this might sound like a joke, but to me it's totally awesome. Wish I was in good enough shape to do something like that. Maybe if I keep climbing the hills around Pittsburgh I might get that way.

There is none of this material in Allegheny County, at least not in some form I can recognize, and I looked and my buddy (a Google Earth tourist) also looked. Nothing. I'm pretty sure there isn't any, the rocks are just wrong.

I moved from Austin, Texas. None there, either.

You might want to know why I didn't move to some place where I could look?

I tried. I really did. But I had notified the Sheriffs and I can imagine them saying, "This needs to be processed like a crime scene or an archeological site ... we don't want Mr. Emmert running around here with a shovel..." If you find any of this material, leave it in place and call the NRC or the local Sheriff. They need to look at it the way it is. This will help them to find more - both locally and internationally. Most of you have cameras, document your find.

...this is WAY better than ANY science fiction...

- Michael C. Emmert

Michael C. Emmert wrote:Oh, I almost forgot. Did you read the link with the post? - Michael C. Emmert (call me Mike)

Dude, you're just a flat-out nutcase. The link in your first post just shows comparative energy levels in different atomic materials; nothing more. It has nothing to do with atomic materials lying in slot canyons of the Colorado plateau, nor Colorado plateau geology. Going around and collecting that much uranium-containing material is crazy; crazy if you expect to find a concentrated source in a canyon, and even crazier if you tried to refine it properly to the proper concentration and isotope content used to make an atomic bomb. And the probability of finding that much uranium (or its thorium precursor, as the article mentions) concentrated in one area is incredibly small to not even be statistically relevant. Kind of like going out looking for gold and expecting to find a 2lb/1kg chunk of it just lying on the ground ready for you to pick up. Even terrorist groups know its easier to make a conventional bomb from common materials lying around a house/easily purchased in a retail store than try to make an atomic bomb. IF you were really mad enough to try and create a bomb from mineral deposits you'd be better off trying to refine the salts in some dry lake beds in the western USA and make a simple toxic dirty bomb; there's plenty of arsenic, selenium, and cyanide salts in low concentrations, but the amount of mineral salts you'd need to scrap up would be insanely high, and insanely costly to refine it all for a few pounds/kilos on atomic material.

FWIW: Most of the better-grade uranium ore is mined in/on the Navajo reservation around the 'Four Corners' area of Colorado/Arizona/Utah/New Mexico. I guess you'd be open to arresting all the members of the Navajo tribes as possible terrorists?