Abstract
THE supremely important subject of the amount of heat derived from radioactivity within the earth is the subject of a recent paper by William D. Urry, of the Geophysical Laboratory, Washington (“Heat Energy from Radioactive Sources in the Earth”, J. Wash. Acad. Sci., 31, 273-84 ; July, 1941), who has arrived at some very important conclusions. Older methods of determining the rate of heat production in particular specimens by examining the radon or thoron content were very cumbersome and thus few specimens were examined. Urry has taken a suggestion by the Director of the Laboratory and has examined a method of finding this rate of heat production merely by counting the rate of alpha particle emission in an ionization chamber. He finds that
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HEAT ENERGY FROM RADIO ACTIVE SOURCES IN THE EARTH. Nature 150, 30–31 (1942). https://doi.org/10.1038/150030a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/150030a0