Word: radon
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...More recently, they have begun to look for other signals of an impending quake, such as changes in the ability of the rock to convey sound waves, local alterations in the earth's surface tilt and magnetic field, and increases in the release from the ground of radioactive radon gas, a phenomenon associated with the fissuring of rock under pressure. Experts have even begun to take seriously reports that animals behave skittishly before quakes...
...volcano is also producing fallout, literally. Geologists noted that Mount St. Helens is venting radioactive radon gas in greater quantities than any "hot" discharge from Pennsylvania's crippled Three Mile Island nuclear plant. Fortunately the gas has a short half-life (3.8 days) and quickly climbs high into the sky before it can affect people...
...economic exploitation of the giant energy companies, who seek the vast quantities of coal and uranium buried underneath the remaining Indian land. Indian workers, for example, have been sent to work in the uranium mines for years without adequate warning of, or protection from, the deadly radioactive gas radon and its breakdown products present in those mines. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, those workers face an increased chance of getting lung cancer...
...astonished to learn that the country had some 10,000 trained earthquake specialists (more than ten times the American total). They were operating 17 major observation centers, which in turn receive data from 250 seismic stations and 5,000 observation points (some of which are simply wells where the radon content of water is measured). In addition, thousands of dedicated amateurs, mainly high school students, regularly collect earthquake data...
...practical start toward earthquake prediction, USGS is constructing a prototype network of automated sensing stations equipped with magnetometers, tiltmeters and seismographs in California's Bear Valley. They are also beginning to make measurements of radon in wells and electrical resistance in rock. Some of the data are already being fed into the USGS's central station at Menlo Park. But analysis is still being delayed by lack of adequate computer facilities...