I’m thinking of getting into this and am wondering:

1. What is a good way of finding public land with uranium ore (or any other spicy rocks)?
2. Is anything I should know about the legality of mining radioactive rocks?
3. Would the Radiacode 103 work well for this purpose or would my money be better spent on something else?

Hi,

im looking for a relatively small, pocket size geiger counter that will alert me when i come close to dangerous sources of radioactivity. I live in eastern germany and often spend time on old russian military bases so orphan sources are a possibility. I just wanna have a device on me to make sure. Any thoughts if the GMC 800 Geiger Counter is any good for my use case? Are there other alternatives?

I know next to nothing about Geiger Counters so it should be easy to use.

I love these perfect spiky (meta)torbernite crystals from Krkonoše mountains, Czech republic. FOV ~3 cm, found in 2023

So first off I'd like to say that I don't intend to collect actual radioactive rocks. I'm just a newbie at this hobby of collecting minerals and rocks, so I want to be safe.

Now, I know about not grinding rocks, inhaling dusts, eating, licking, touching the rocks and then my face or sensitive bodyparts, washing my hands after handling etc. But today I saw an article about radioactivity in granite and I'm worried about my storing method of some igneous rocks I've collected from beaches. I have them stored in a plastic box, about 1.5 meters distance from my bed and they're mostly basalt and two small pieces of diorite(you might see them in the picture actually). In the basalt specimens I've identified olivine, sulfur crystals and iron dioxide dust on the surface.

I want to ask:

Are igneous rocks actually radioactive? If yes, do they pose a hazard? Is my storing method safe?(tho that might be kinda pointless since now I will definitely move them elsewhere, to keep my head cool) Do you have any advice about storing?

Bonus question: I've had most of the igneous rocks for about 10 months, stored like this and some others(mainly the basalt with sulfur crystals and another piece with the iron dioxide) have been in my collection for 3 years(but for the first they weren't next to my bed or in my bedroom at all for that matter). Very minimal direct contact though, mostly kept in the box and rarely taken out. Is that amount of exposure concerning?

Can anyone point me to a resource on how to ship radioactive rocks in the U.S.? Airlines, for instance, say “no radioactive items”, yet I don’t see people slammed to the wall in security, having to surrender any bananas in their carry on. Seriously, though, I’m doing a little uranium hunting on an upcoming trip to Oregon, and wonder if I can take a few specimens back on the plane, ship it via ground, etc. I’m familiar with 10CFR49, having worked on nuclear transportation most of my career. I suppose one could show that their samples didn’t meet the 2 nCi/g threshold, but that seems painful for a handful of specimens. I can just see going through the calculations for an impatient TSA agent. Is there a de minimis rule, or any other kind of exclusion used by airlines and ground carriers? Any help much appreciated…

The question is simple but I suspect the answer may not be. I've been watching a few rock hounds on YouTube and the samples found are dirty, muddy, etc. At the end of the respective videos the samples collected are very clean and ready to display. What measures should be used to clean ones finds in preparation to display?

We no longer find anything in France and yet there have been numerous mines and large mines, French legislation says that all mines must be protected, the dumps buried and the quarries filled in and filled with water. I found a very kind person in the Czech Republic who sent me some samples of minerals found at his home during his research and there are many places in this country that are very hot and he finds beautiful pieces that glow well to UV.

https://preview.redd.it/bfa5nhxyi70d1.jpg?width=1856&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=eb2bbb31077334187f59f162e3c65c8f5d35a95b

I’m looking at a piece of uranium or with a cpm of 525k cpm. Is this considered safe to own. Obviously not sleeping with it. It will be sealed in an air tight container in my garage. Any feedback would be much appreciated.

I bought a used scintillator a while back and it came with a Theremino box that generated audio output via USB (the box takes USB power in, powers the scintillator, accepts the scintillator output and turns it into audio USB output, and USB-C does both just fine). I could make it functional with a few Android apps, but not really useful. However, the Atom Spectra app was recently updated and while not perfect it now works well enough to be a useful prospecting rig. That is, it has audio tone sequence for intensity of signal instead of clicks, and you can program the app to ignore a particular level of background signal.

In effect, a poor man's Gamma Dog. Used it yesterday and while I am still tweaking the app settings it performed adequately and is a lot more sensitive than my Radiacode. Just bringing it up in case we have any other tinkerers interested in this sort of thing.

I ordered this because it was a good deal. In my opinion. I bought it for looking for rocks.

I have 5 specimens all together and I am constructing a custom box to display them in. For the viewing window, I was thinking uranium glass as its not really radioactive at all, its excellent at stopping alpha and beta radiation, and its much cheaper than traditional radiation shielding glass. Any thoughts or ideas would be very much appreciated!

Found during radiological clean up. Approx 999960 cpm or 775uR/h. Unfortunately it went to a long term waste facility for NORM