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The Potential of the London Underground for Liquid Scintillation Counting

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2016

Sheridan Bowman
Sheridan Bowman*
Affiliation:
British Museum Research Laboratory, London WC1B 3DG, England
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Abstract

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A portable gamma spectrometer has been used to survey three locations that are part of the London Underground Transport System (the “tube”). Up to an order of magnitude reduction in the cosmic ray flux was observed relative to the laboratory level. The likely reduction in background count rate achievable by underground siting of currently used Packard and LKB liquid scintillation counters is considered. It is noted that in the present, surface usage for radiocarbon dating, the background count rate of low-potassium glass vials in the LKB is not substanially higher than that of PTFE vials.

Type
V. Conventional Techniques
Information
Radiocarbon , Volume 28 , Issue 2A , 1986 , pp. 592 - 596
Copyright
Copyright © The American Journal of Science 

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