Hello,

im interested in exploring a local mine near to myself. it has apparently high levels of radon.

my knowledge on radiation is limited, but what i do know is its all about exposure. are you at high risk of the obvious lung cancer by spending a short period in a mine with higher than normal levels? or is it long term exposure thats the worry?

i have access to gas monitors so can check for methane LEL and O2/CO, H2S etc etc

if all else fails i'll buy a budgie 😢

Gas detectors and budgies won't tell you anything about radon levels in the mine. Ideally, you need to get hold of a geiger counter, take background radiation measurements outside the mine, then see what sort of response you get inside. If it starts crackling like mad you don't want to hang around in there.

You need to make more enquiries about this mine - what's the geology around there (i.e. where is the radon coming from) and where does the information about radon levels come from - is there a sign close by or has someone told you, as enhanced radon levels can mean anything from "you wouldn't want to move in, but a couple of hours in there doesn't pose much of a risk" to "your breath will glow in the dark if you turn your lamp off".

---

thanks for the reply!

i understand that a gas monitor wont help with radiation. i do have access to a geiger counter but work only has one and i dont think they'll appreciate it going missing!

its the alva silver mines that im interested in exploring. there owned now by the forestry commission so i could phone them up and find out.

there were signs nailed up all over the area.

i wonder if anyone here has any experience of exploring them?

Bit of an aside, but a mate of mine that works in the Nuclear industry couldn't do Giant's in summer because the radon levels he gained would set off the alarms when he went into work the Monday....

I am not aware of any radon at Alva. A literature scan shows nowt:

Alva Silver Mine, NGR NS 88 97 Landranger 58 Silver Glen, Alva [NE of Stirling], Clackmannanshire
First worked in 1715, the Alva Silver Mine is the richest deposit of native silver ever found in Great Britain. Native silver occurs as dendritic crystal aggregates to several cm, associated with clinsafflorite and rammelsbergite in a dolomite-baryte-calcite gangue. Moreton, S 1996 The Alva Silver Mine, Silver Glen, Alva, Scotland. Mineralogical Record 27 (6) 405-414

In the 18th century an intensive mining operation in the hills above Alva, Clackmannanshire, extracted quantities of high quality silver ore. Several mines are visible within easy access of a public footpath in Silver Glen. The downside is that, following a recent survey of the mines and subsequent publication, all the horizontal adits have been blocked off by the Woodland Trust who oversee the land. The mine the largest in terms of overall entrance, is still accessible by climbing over the railing. A steep slope down leads to a short climb up into a horizontal adit, gained via a section of railway line jammed across the rift. There are eleven identified workings (two of them are 20ft shafts communicating with levels having a bottom entrance) and most are clearly visible due to fencing and warning notices. The mines ceased operation in the late 18th century. They were re-worked in 1880 and again at the beginning of the 20th century for ancillary minerals but nothing profitable was found.


Anon 1963 Alva Silver Mines. Alloa Advertiser 5 April 1963 8. Source Brown 1980

Anon ND Alva Silva Mines. Northern Notes & Queries or The Scottish Antiquary 1 (4) 53-55

Anon 2007 Scottish Bookshelf. Book Review: Bonanzas and Jacobites: The Story of Silver Glen by Stephen Moreton. The absorbing story of the silver and cobalt mines of the Ochils. The reviewer, as a boy, explored the caves and mine working in the Ochils, also the old calcite mine above Menstrie. Scots Mag 167 (1) 80

Beadman, D R, et al 2002 Design and construction of a tunnel above abandoned mine workings: the Roughcastle tunnel, Falkirk, Scotland. Mining Technology 111 (12) 99-105

Dickie, D M, and Forster, C W, Editors, assisted by Mrs E Lumsden, J Ritchie, A Roy and R Woodburn. 2nd ed 1974; reprint 1986 Mines and Minerals of the Ochils. Clackmannanshire Field Studies Society. 43, maps, illus. Airthrey Silver Mine, Alva Silver Mines, John Erskine’s Mine, Carnaughton Glen Mines, Blairlogies Mines, Burn of Sorrow Mine, Tillicoultry Mines, Daiglen Mine, Balquharn Mines, Jerah Mines, Myreton Calcite Workings.

Edie, William L, 1924 Precious metals of Scotland, prospecting and where found. Kirkcaldy. Fifeshire Advertiser 39. Brief mention of Alva silver 14-16. Source Brown 1980

Green and Todd 11

Harrison, John G, 2003 Heavy Metal Mines in the Ochils: Chronology and Context. Forth Naturalist and Historian 26 105-118. Bridge of Allan, Allan Water NS 787 983, Airthey Hill Mine NS 8152 9720, Aiirthrey Silver Mine NS 8152 9720, Blairlogie Trials, Jerah Mine NS 8323 9949 & NS 8300 9982, Balquharn Burn Trials NS 8653 9782 the site of Earl of Stirling’s mines c 1607, also worked in mid 18th century. Carnaughton Glen Silver Mine NS 8781 9754, Alva Silver mine, Tillicoultry NS 9234 9812, Kirk NS 9124 9780 and Daiglen Burns NS 9106 9834, Dollar Burn NN 9455 0021, Pendreich NS 8065 9922, Western bank of Allan Water NS 787 983. All Landranger 57

Holliday, J. 1964 The Alva Silver Mines. GSG 1st Series 2 (1) 6

Jeffreys, Alan L 2007 The Alva Silver Mines. Ser 4 GSG 3 (2) 18-25, 8 B&W photos, 2 colour photos opp 26, location map, surveys. The definitive work on the currently accessible workings.

Jeffreys, A.L. 2007 Alva Silver Mines - Erratum. GSG 4th Series 3 (3) 17

Jeffreys, Alan 2008 Mines in Scotland 20

Landless 3

M&M (10) IV

MacOwan, Rennie 2007 Scots Magazine July 167 (1) 80. Heading for the Hills / The saga of the Silver Glen. A review of Moreton 2007 ibid.

MacPherson, A D S May 1964 The Wee County. Scots Mag 81 (2) 116-118, illus. Alva Silver Mines.

Moreton, S 1996 The Alva Silver Mine, Silver Glen, Alva, Scotland. Mineralogical Record 27 (6) 405-414

Moreton, Stephen 2007 Bonanzas and Jacobites / The Story of the Silver Glen. 94 pp, many photos, some in colour. Edinburgh, National Museums Scotland. A detailed history of the Alva Silver mines from 1715 to date, including the discovery of cobalt in 1758. Thoroughly referenced, chapter by chapter, with additional notes and background information accompanying the references. List of minerals found and descriptions of the mines still open, includes a Radon warning.

Murray, (1894) Handbook for Scotland, reprinted 1971 David & Charles, Newton Abbot. 199 silver mines

Palmer, William T, 1947 The Verge of the Scottish Highlands. Robert Hale Ltd, London 148-149 “Ochil Silver. The silver yield of the Alva mines two centuries ago was startling. The Silver Glen between Middle and Wood hills made £4,000 a week for Sir John Erskine. The Government’s attention was drawn to the valuable veins of ore, two of which were particularly rich and produced in a few week 134 ounces of the richest silver, as assayed and tested by no less a personage than Sir Isaac Newton, then Master of the Mint. In 1715 Sir John entered a perilous adventure to bring back the Stuarts. He left his wife in charge of the mines and of forty tons of silver ore buried in the grounds of Alva House. The rising failed and Sir John was outlawed. To buy back the Government’s favour he sent information about his silver ore, and in the winter of 1716-7, a Mint expert reported that:

“I found it (the ore) of an extraordinary nature, such as to my knowledge few or none like have ever seen in Europe. It consists of sulphur, arsenic, iron, some lead and good silver. Of all these the silver is only to be regarded, for the other minerals and metals contained in the ore are of little value, and not worth the charge to separate and keep them”.

“The treasure-trove is said to have produced £40,000 to £50,000, but Sir John did not prosper, the output diminished, and the mines soon came to an end.”

Proctor, John and Bacon, Margaret E 1979 The plants and soils of two mineral workings in the Ochil Hills. Forth Naturalist and Historian 3 71-77, 2 figs.

Roger, Charles 1853 A Week at Bridge of Allan, / comprising an account of the Spa, and a series of six excursions to the interesting /scenery of / central Scotland. Adam & Charles Black, Edinburgh. Reprinted 1995 by Stirling District Libraries. 186.

Scott, Douglas M, May 1997 Mining in the Ochils. Scots Mag 146 (5) 488-492 Alva Silver Mine, Bridge of Allan, Airthrey Silver Mine, Blairlogie Copper Mines, Burn of Sorrow Mine, Mill Glen Trial, Daiglen Mine, Kirk Glen Trial, Balquharn Mine, Carnaughton Silver Mine.

Wilson 1921 143

---

thanks for the reply!


its the alva silver mines that im interested in exploring. there owned now by the forestry commission so i could phone them up and find out.

:thumbdown:
NOOOOOOO!
Do not contact the forestry or any other "official"body :smartass:

If you intend to investigate be subtle.
Try to get local information or find a local club.
I understand that a normal geiger counter is very poor at detecting alpha emmitters which are the bamaging component with radon.
Do not damage anything to gain entry & leave no traces of your visit.

:thumbdown:
NOOOOOOO!
Do not contact the forestry or any other "official"body :smartass:

If you intend to investigate be subtle.
Try to get local information or find a local club.
I understand that a normal geiger counter is very poor at detecting alpha emmitters which are the bamaging component with radon.
Do not damage anything to gain entry & leave no traces of your visit.

now now, im not stupid. i've explored many places and found ways in without damaging or altering existing structure's. its the golden rule of urban exploration! as well as not openly sharing how you enter

as for obtaining information. theres little point stating my true intentions...

thank you rhychydwr1, thats interesting reading. i wonder why theres signs plastered all over. to scare? or maybe they were only tested in recent years. the signs are all less than 10 years old.

it also looks like an entrance on the lower west side of the mines was blocked off recently with a large boulder and concrete. concrete 'looked' quite fresh.

"I understand that a normal geiger counter is very poor at detecting alpha emmitters which are the bamaging component with radon." i'll have to do some more reasearch! 🙂

Try the UKcaving website - there have been threads on radon monitoring / exposure and most research on non-workplace exposure has been in caves. Try a google search on John Gunn - he's caving's "Mr.Radon". He had some detectors that he took on a mining trip with me that gave good results in an hour or two. Incidentally, radon monitoring is apparently best undertaken in dead ends and other places with minimal airflow.

Try these guys
http://www.sat.dundee.ac.uk/~arb/gsg/ 

who are your local caving group, and will know about stuff like this.

Chris.

The Health Protection Agency ( a quango) supply radon moniters. They are about £18 each, this includes amalysis by the HPA. Plonk one in your mine, recover it three months later and post back to HPA.

Not so good for an instant result but if you intend to undertake a long term project in the mine such as a dig it might be worth considering.

Alternatively, you could just ignore the whole issue, after all if you can't see it how can it hurt you.

Alternatively, you could just ignore the whole issue, after all if you can't see it how can it hurt you.

I like that 🙂

---

I was interested in this a while ago. To be honest, you're more likely to be crushed by a rockfall or fall through a false floor than get nuked by radon, unless you are properly unsafe.

Again, with things like ropework and bad air, people get hysterical and a load of crap gets spouted.

The key thing is that you can measure radiation one way, but get nuked in another.

In order to detect radiation (radon related), the best tool is a geiger counter which detects alpha radiation (which makes up most of the Uranium decay chain). The unit detects helium nuclii being spat out of uranium and it's decay products. They have different energies, properties and to say they are in a typical concentration is to generalise. Different environments favour different "species" of "stuff". Some are water soluble, some react with gases in the air, some adhere to water droplets.

So, you have this radioactive stuff and you can wave a magic wand around and get a reading on your meter. This will generally be in Bq (decay events per unit time). It's how many events take place that your detector can detect.

This can be converted into Bq/M^3 which is to say "How many decay events are happening in a cubic meter of air". Obviously, this means **** all to you, if you are a dwarf who hardly breathes, or a fat *******, who absorbs radon daughters through every pore upon sweating like a blind lesbian in a fishmongers upon even thinking of exertion.....

There are more units of radiation and radiation absorption than you can shake a stick at. Various meters can speculate at "doses" and "stuff you absorb" but these are very specific indeed. They assume a lot. They are essentially Bq meters (count decay events) which have a "wrong scale" which comes across as a dose.

You really need a proper radiation scientist who takes into account a ridiculous amount of factors to actually give you a real dose "Sv". But as there haven't been any nuclear direct hits recently, more likely mSv.

You can convert Bq (geiger clicks) into "How much I was nuked" (mSv Dose) [absorbed by your eyes and lungs] with a rough factor, but it's very dependent on all sorts of factors.

I was interested in 2 specific mines.

South Terras Uranium Mine which gave 18mSv PER HOUR (this is about gas mk6- we used breathing apparatus)

and

Old Gunnislake Mine..... Can't remember the Bq reading, but it was a lot and you'd get your yearly "if you push it" 10mSv in about 16 hours.

I'm sure we nuke the hell out of ourselves on a regular basis and like fags, you could get lung cancer tomorrow or never...... It's probably a bad idea....but you could just die of alternative means.

It isn't really worth fussing about, unless you are going to be totally nuked by something like S Terras.

For the record, a google of S Terras turns up all sorts of things like Geiger Counters going "off the scale" outside of the adit portal and allsorts.

To sum up,

Nuclear Stuff = Headless Hyperbole (in most cases)....

Right.....bed.

I really don't think there's any point on re-inventing the wheel over this. The BCA previously NCA over the years has done a lot of work on this & really the only port of call is their advice & if you need further information go through them. Putting requests like this on a site like this produces all sorts of responses which may be good bad or indifferent & how can you tell what to believe?
No criticism for anyone putting requests like this up, but the response must be to direct the request to the right place.
Re Alva, I believe Grampian Speleological Group had permission for a trip there for the NAMHO conference some years ago but just before the trip it was sealed up. Understood this was through the Woodland Trust rather than FC. would strongly recommend contacting the GSG.

Just to say this if this is some organisation putting up signs to scare
people off without there actually being any justification for them that
that is, IMHO, not a good thing. I have heard about it being done at
times and it risks devaluing the impact of real signs about real risks
- you should be able to trust that warnings mean what they say
otherwise people start ignoring them.

Secondly, I can't leave out mentioning one of those 'Proper
Radiation Scientists', a distant colleague of mine. Sapper William
Blanchard, day job 'Radiation Protection Officer', was killed by small
arms fire whilst preparing to destroy an Improvised Explosive Device in
Nahr-e Saraj, Helmand, Afghanistan, on the 30th of November 2010.
http://bv.army-uk.com/news_detail.php?id=2719 

My understanding is that Radon Gas exists pretty well everywhere and that the greatest exposure would be a mine without ventilation but you would need to be working there on a regular basis to have any real effect?

The BCA is going to be the best port of call

Mike

The UK map of Radon risk areas is enlightening!

Going back to my working days. Radon tends to be in the Granite rock areas. In housing, areas under floor area is ventilated to disperse the Radon
Check the Geology maps for the area for Granite.

---

A few Radon area maps.

http://www.ukradon.org/article.php?key=indicativemap_EW 

It would be fair to say that the highest levels of Radon are found in mines with poor or no ventilation.

Generally the highest levels are to be found in areas where there is granite, however this is only a rule. High levels of the gas can be found in many non-granite areas of the UK. Derbyshire mines and caves are known to have high levels too, which might seem surprising to some.

Exposure to high levels for long lengths of time are known to be harmful or at least have the potential to do harm. That is not to say that short exposure to very high levels can also do harm.

It would be fair to say that visiting mines with good ventilation will certainly reduce the risk of exposure to high levels of radon and other gases which are not good for explorers ;)

Where I work, I monitor the levels of radon on a regular basis and keep exposure records as required by UK law, so if anyone has any questions - then feel free to PM.

---

A few Radon area maps.

http://www.ukradon.org/article.php?key=indicativemap_EW 

Yes....

Our house sale recently fell through due to a hysterical lady buyer being scared off by the radon risk detailed on these maps.

Our house is in the Cambridgeshire fens....... ::)