Radiation from old glow-in-the-dark watchfaces

[Manti]

https://youtube.com/shorts/JRL_Tvazw2I
Is this why radiation was detected on their clothes in some places? Did the stream the "Ravine 4" were found in wash out the radium from their watches and their clothes filter and retain some of it?

[Ryan]

That’s not possible if the report from chief radiologist Levashov is to be believed.

Radium, as found in luminous watch hands and dials, is primarily Ra-226, has a 1600 year half-life, and is primarily an alpha emitter. Now it does form a decay chain, so a sample of radium would emit alpha, beta, and gamma.

Levashov reported that only beta was detected, not alpha or gamma. Assuming Levashov is competent and truthful, then we can rule out radium contamination.

Thorium, used in lantern mantles, is primarily Th-232, which is also an alpha emitter, and forms a decay chain. So we can rule out thorium.

Uranium, as would be mined from the ground, is primarily U-238 which is primarily an alpha emitter, and it too forms a decay chain. So we can rule out uranium, too.

[Loose}{Cannon]

Two of them worked in the field of enrichment. One was involved in Russias second most known contamination disaster. Its more interesting to me however that those individuals clothing were found on the other 7. 

[Почемучка]

Two of them worked in the field of enrichment. One was involved in Russias second most known contamination disaster. Its more interesting to me however that those individuals clothing were found on the other 7.

Насчет радиоактивности. Тут имеет смысл вспомнить рассказ Риммы Колеватовой что её брат выносил на себе откуда-то свитера по нескольку штук на теле. Есть свидетельство Штейна, того самого,  чей прибор для измерения уровня радиации возил на поиски Кикоин.
Так вот. После событий на ФизТехе УПИ - проводилось какое-то внутреннее расследование. Надо думать - гвоздем этого расследования были именно те свитера. Ведь лаборанты при выполнении работ с радиоактивными веществами - должны иметь рабочую одежду. Мало того, дозиметрическую службу ФизТеха постоянно привлекали и к исследованию ВУРС и похожих проблем.
Так что путь попадания радиации - со всей очевидностью не является тайной.

About radioactivity. Here it makes sense to recall the story of Rimma Kolevatova that her brother carried several sweaters on his body from somewhere. There is evidence of Stein, the same one whose device for measuring the level of radiation drove in search of Kikoin.
So. After the events at PhysTech UPI, some kind of internal investigation was carried out. One must think that those sweaters were the highlight of this investigation. After all, laboratory assistants when performing work with radioactive substances must have work clothes. Moreover, the dosimetric service of PhysTech was constantly involved in the study of EURT and similar problems.
So the way radiation enters is obviously not a secret.

[Ryan]

I am not comfortable writing off the radiation found on the hikers’ clothing as occupational.

1. The Soviet Union practiced basic industrial hygiene around radiation. You would never enter an environment where you could be exposed to contamination in your civil clothes. You would be provided a change of clothes for your shift precisely because they don’t want you “taking your work home with you.”

2. Even if someone managed to get their personal clothing contaminated, is that personal clothing worn to work going to be the same clothing worn on a ski expedition to the Urals?

3. Contamination doesn’t magically jump around. There has to be a physical method involved in transferring it from one person’s clothing to another. It is unlikely that one person’s radioactive clothing could contaminate 9 pieces of clothing worn by 4 people.

4. The people associated with the nuclear industry are both men. Would either of them wear women’s leggings to work, get them contaminated, bring them on the trip, and in the confusion of the fatal evening Lyudmila would put them on?

5. The type of contamination is very specific. Clothing contaminated with uranium would have high levels of measurable alpha radiation. No alpha was measured according to the report.

6. Also, isn’t there a significant time lapse between these people’s nuclear work and the trip?

The only thing that makes sense to me is that something contaminated all of the Ravine 4 hikers, either during the hike itself or post-mortem.

[RMK]

I am not comfortable writing off the radiation found on the hikers’ clothing as occupational.

1. The Soviet Union practiced basic industrial hygiene around radiation. You would never enter an environment where you could be exposed to contamination in your civil clothes. You would be provided a change of clothes for your shift precisely because they don’t want you “taking your work home with you.”

2. Even if someone managed to get their personal clothing contaminated, is that personal clothing worn to work going to be the same clothing worn on a ski expedition to the Urals?

3. Contamination doesn’t magically jump around. There has to be a physical method involved in transferring it from one person’s clothing to another. It is unlikely that one person’s radioactive clothing could contaminate 9 pieces of clothing worn by 4 people.

4. The people associated with the nuclear industry are both men. Would either of them wear women’s leggings to work, get them contaminated, bring them on the trip, and in the confusion of the fatal evening Lyudmila would put them on?

5. The type of contamination is very specific. Clothing contaminated with uranium would have high levels of measurable alpha radiation. No alpha was measured according to the report.

6. Also, isn’t there a significant time lapse between these people’s nuclear work and the trip?

The only thing that makes sense to me is that something contaminated all of the Ravine 4 hikers, either during the hike itself or post-mortem.

At least from my inexpert perspective, you make good points.  Interesting.  I'm curious--do you have any alternate explanations in mind?

[Ryan]

I used to favor a theory of military weapons tests involving a Sr-90 dirty bomb.

Now, I am looking at a variant of the 1079 theory. The book is excellent, and there’s a lot to it, but in a nutshell, a falling tree caused the injuries and deaths. They were discovered shortly after their deaths but presumed to be a different group that went missing. The tree falling could be attributed to blasting in the area associated with geologic exploration. Then, people made the connection that this was the group of UPI students and a very high profile search was underway. So the tent was moved up to the slope and the bodies staged to make it look like they fled from the tent and died of hypothermia, which would absolve the people involved in the geological / explosives work of any responsibility. Then the search party found the staged scene.

My speculation is that the people staging the bodies didn’t want the Ravine 4, who had the most obvious traumatic injuries due to the tree falling on them, to be found. These people were operating under a lot of pressure and made some stupid decisions, one of which was to dump the four bodies in the ravine and shovel caustic potash, or potassium hydroxide, which is a close cousin of lye, on them and bury them with snow, thinking it would dissolve the bodies. It didn’t work, and Ivanov’s team eventually found the last four bodies. But potassium is naturally radioactive due to K-40, and some of the clothes retained enough potassium hydroxide to be measurably radioactive.

I have done math to show that 4.3 grams of potassium hydroxide, if retained in the 75 cm^2 sample of Lyudmila’s brown sweater, would produce the exact results measured by the expert in Sverdlovsk.

Is this plausible? I don’t know. But it does explain the radiation, and it uses a natural source, getting around the problematic question of how unobtainable manmade isotopes contaminated the hikers.