So today I am standing on top of a hill in an abandoned phosphate mine at my good friend
Don's property in central Florida and we're here to answer one fundamental question today
Are Megalodon Teeth Radioactive The reason I thought to put together this video is because
I was reading a bunch of articles yeah I mean a bunch of articles on how homeowners were
suing phosphate corporations because they were worried that undisclosed radiation might
be affecting their health there were studies about how phosphate workers were more prone
to morbidity and so today we're going to be looking at some of my fossils that I have
from this area I thought that I had the perfect test source plus I was honestly just curious
to see if my Megalodon teeth were radioactive so we have right here a CD V-700 it was built
by the civil defense force in 1967 during the height of the cold war era and we've got
fossils from Central Florida right where these mines are that the articles you saw popped
up were referencing.
We've got uranium ore, Megalodon teeth from georgia some mammal fossils some terrestrial
fossils for comparison a big 6 inch tooth from North Carolina and then for diversity's
sake a Megalodon tooth from Indonesia so lets get right down to it now this gieger counter
measures beta and gamma radiation and so for those of you that kind of fell asleep during
science class we will do a quick little lesson overview and if you don't want to watch that
you can catch back to the measurements of these fossils at the well I'm not sure what
it is now but at at this mark so lets get to it now simply speaking radiation is just
a way in which the unstable atoms of elements can become stable some atoms have an unhealthy
combination of electrons protons and neutrons and radioactivity is a way for these atoms
to balance themselves and reach a stable state now there are three different forms of radiation
alpha radiation beta radiation and gamma radiation alpha radiation is the weakest form of radiation
and occurs in the form of two protons and two neutrons emitted from an unstable atom
it cannot penetrate paper beta radiation on the other hand is more penetrative and occurs
in the form of an electron emitted from an unstable atom it can penetrate through paper
but cannot penetrate through aluminum finally gamma radiation is the most penetrative form
of radiation able to penetrate through paper and aluminum but not through lead and occurs
in the form of electromagnetic radiation from an unstable atom and electromagnetic radiation
is you can think of it as scary light energy in the following example of an uranium decay
chain you can see how uranium uses multiple forms of radiation to eventually get to the
stable form of lead which has a happy balance of electrons protons and neutrons now to summarize
there are three forms of radiation alpha beta and gamma and radiation in its most simplistic
terms is a way for an unstable atom to become stable now who's ready to test some Megalodon
teeth alright first things first let's open this sensor let's see click and lets turn
it on right now the sensor should be picking up any background radiation so any clicks
or counts you see right here there's one right there is from radon in the soil so right now
I have it set to measure counts per minute and it is at one times so if it says 100 it
is 100 counts per minute we might have to move it up times 10 if anything is you know
crazy here are our first set of culprits fossil whale vertebrae and two Megalodon teeth found
locally let's start with that big whale vert we've got the sensor open we've got the first
whale vert we've got the phone up here ready to record some counts lets get started ooh
its picking up some radiation but really not that much there we go a few counts picking
up a little bit of radiation that's past background let's try the Megalodon tooth next our first
Meg tooth that we're testing put it right up one count really not much lets try this
section of root right here a couple counts one more meg tooth from here that we're going
to test put it up a few counts so they are radioactive just slightly though lets see
how that compares to with our Georgia Megalodon teeth here we are with those Georgia megs
lets get it rolling lets try this beautiful big one first first put it up let's watch
to see if the count responds oh yeah! yeah! definitely ohhh this one is showing to be
significantly more radioactive than the other one we can even see the dial right up here
in the corner that's impressive okay let's try the other one let's see its coming back
down lets get it going this one is radioactive too so both of these are from Georgia which
funny enough is near Kings Bay where they have the nuclear submarines there United States
Nuclear Submarines I think that's just a coincidence a correlation not a causation but these two
teeth are definitely radioactive lets test that North Carolina Meg next alright we've
got this big honker of a tooth 6 inches plus let's see if she gives off some counts put
it up definitely getting some counts it seems to be kind of in between the georgia stuff
and the central florida stuff there we go that's definitely radioactive now don't worry
it is not high of a radiation to be harmful to me but it is still significant well I guess
we have already answered the question if Megalodon teeth are radioactive but it is really interesting
to see that these do differ based off locality let me get the last megalodon tooth the one
we've got from indonesia alright here we go back with the Indonesian Megalodon tooth so
quite a bit away from where we are now let's see if an ocean or two away makes a difference
okay sensor is on it but its not picking up anything the single counts you see right there
might just be background radiation the radon that's in the soil lets try over here in the
front nothing it is less radioactive well basically it is not radioactive at all so
this tooth has no signs of secondary radiation we can't tell if it is higher than background
radiation that is interesting we'll have to talk about that in the discussion let's do
for comparison the mammal stuff the terrestrial fossils next so we've got four mammal fossils
here one giant ground sloth claw that I found locally from the genus paramylodon a giant
ground sloth claw from the cave systems in Bolivia a gomphothere tooth from the Miocene
same age as the Megalodon Shark Teeth that was discovered close to the Georgia Megs so
these two are very similar in locality and age and then a Mastodon tooth that I also
found locally so let's start with local fossils this giant ground sloth claw will it give
us any counts?
And I'm not seeing anything register just a little bit naw you can't say that's more
than background radiation now let's test the local Mastodon tooth see that was background
radiation those counts right there here is the mastodon tooth nothing zip noda and the
main reason why that is is we have 6 gigatons of Uranium dissolved in the ocean at least
that's what I heard in college but its a lot and that can replace the calcium in the shark
teeth but will it replace some of the calcium and bone structure in this gomphothere tooth
which is the same age let's test it it's giving off a few counts its hard to say if that is
more than background radiation though I don't think so and finally I know that this claw
is really interesting because I tested it earlier ope there is a few counts here we
go so this ground sloth claw is slightly very slightly above background radiation and that
might relate to it being found in a cave system all that dissolved nutrients in water might
have leached radioactive mineral from the surrounding rock and replaced them in this
bone so we've seen a lot of really interesting stuff so far I am ready to talk about it alright
there is one more thing I wanted to test today so this is right here is a piece of Uranium
ore from New Mexico from New Mexico let's see if we can't light this gieger counter
up ope that's terrifying that is terrifying let's put this at ten times that is still
terrifying it should okay that means its reading at 1500 counts a minute right now a probably
should stop this is getting a little bit dangerous alright yeah lets get into the grit of what's
going on today so earlier today we talked about how there is a lot of radioactive material
dissolved in the ocean and I think that might be the first clue in understanding why these
marine fossils were much more radioactive than these terrestrial fossils so there is
about 6 gigatons of uranium dissolved in the ocean which is a huge number but that still
doesn't explain why an individual tooth like this varied from a tooth like this so this
is a Georgia Megalodon tooth and even though they both came from the ocean you can tell
that there is a very different level of mineralization this tooth from central Florida is phosphate
rich it is mineralized by an upwelling zone off the coast of Florida druring the Miocene
this tooth was in a more deep ocean environment you can see pyrite minerals that have leached
into the bourlette and enamel that are more from the host rock of the area now despite
that difference it is still very obvious that these marine fossils are more radioactive
than these terrestrial fossils with the exception of this one sloth claw from Bolivia now this
sloth claw was found in the cave system there and most likely the porous rock in that cave
leached some minerals and those minerals then found their way and remineralized this bone
and that might explain why this was slightly more radioactive lets take this Mastodon tooth
that was found locally this was found in a river the animal died probably in a marsh
and got preserved in some kind of peat and that peat wasn't concentrated in uranium,
radium, and other minerals but that still leaves us with one really weird question kind
of like why we started this video the articles about homeowners freaking out about these
local phosphate rocks and I personally believe that's more post processing so when we make
this into a product, fertilizer, we have to react it with sulfur and by doing that we
create a lot of by-products one of them being radium and radium is found in Gypsum that
they stack in massive super-massive piles around Tampa Bay that Gypsum was once sold
to China as a product and was remade into drywall and sold back to us when we found
out we were buying radioactive drywall we ixnayed on that real quick and now we just
have piles of it that we don't know what to do with, but I think what we learned today
and what we saw from these fossils was incredible if you guys enjoyed it it takes a lot of effort
and work to put these videos together and we really believe with this channel we can
connect these awesome fossils that we find in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina to relevant
scientific concepts like deep time, extinction, radioactivity, fluorescence, Climate Change,
so if you guys want me to make more of these videos please like, share, subscribe, and
I promise that we will bring more of this awesome scientific content to you.
And really seriously thank you so much for watching it means so much to this channel
and what I am trying to do.