What was supposed to be a simple classroom demonstration of a Geiger counter turned into a school-closing panic when the sensitive radiation detector set up a loud clamor over a rock.
Colonia High School was evacuated and a hazardous materials team clad in lead aprons borrowed from a dentist secured the rock in a lead-lined box.
But scientists said Wednesday that the grapefruit-sized chunk of stone was never any threat.
The radiation danger was no worse than sunlight, said William Csaszar, a radiation physicist for the state Department of Environmental Protection.
Yeah. Alpha and beta radiation is normally harmless unless it's inside your body. Uranium is far more hazardous as a toxic metal than as a radioactive material. Yes--stay away from anyplace depleted uranium rounds were used or depleted uranium armor was hit. Stay away for chemical reasons, not nuclear ones.
Colonia High School was evacuated and a hazardous materials team clad in lead aprons borrowed from a dentist secured the rock in a lead-lined box.
But scientists said Wednesday that the grapefruit-sized chunk of stone was never any threat.
The radiation danger was no worse than sunlight, said William Csaszar, a radiation physicist for the state Department of Environmental Protection.