SNOW on the summit of Mont Blanc, western Europe’s highest mountain, is 80
times as radioactive as that anywhere else in the Alps, French scientists have
discovered. Radon gas seeping into the snow from crevasses in the rock is the
source of the radioactivity.
Radon is a decay product of uranium, traces of which occur naturally in
granite. Radon in turn decays into a radioactive isotope, lead-210, which is
monitored around the world to validate models of atmospheric lead pollution.
But when researchers led by Michel Pourchet from the French government’s
Glaciology and Environmental Geophysics Laboratory in Grenoble took samples…
