From: "roberta serface"

Sent: Monday, May 23, 2005 12:11 PM

Subject: Radon in Caves

I visited your website through Cavers Digest. What a wonderful experience! I

just wanted to let you know that we did a Radon Test in a northern Arizona

cave in 1994. It was 88 picocuries on the floor where the tester was located

at approx. -350' depth. Thereafter, we shortened the amount of trips and the

time we spent in-cave.

Roberta

.........

REPLY:

Hello Roberta!

Glad you liked our website. I am assuming the Northern Arizona cave was in

limestone and not volcanic. If your 88 picocuries is equivalent to 88

Pci/L, it is very far above what we found in the only limestone cave we

tested (1.2 Pci/L). However, I don't know anything about equivalences of

different testing results and just reported what the local expert in that

field told me were the results.

If your results DO equal 88 Pci/L, I wonder if you have any idea why there

is so much radon gas there. We got a high result in one of the lava tubes

and figure this is due to cracks in the floor and a bed of granite (quite

radioactive in Saudi Arabia) underneath.

Do you know if anyone is compiling radon-in-caves info worldwide?

John