Because of new technology out the standard Radon Tests of Charcoal Canister & Alpha Tract Particle canister where not used because of many concerns:
I talk with four Nuclear Physicists and they all agreed that these types of tests are not designed for readings over 30 PCi/L. These are some of their concerns:
Charcoal Canister: Because the trapping agent is activated charcoal in a cave environment with the humidity being 100% the charcoal would also absorb a greater amount of H2O thus causing the PCi/L to be shown as a lower reading than actual amount (Dilution).
Alpha Track Particle Canister: Because of the high concentration of Radon gas & alpha emitter particles it is best to use this as a short term test thus 48hrs to at most one month. (Side note: one test we did with an Alpha Particle canister it was placed within Titan Mine which is within one mile of WY largest cave and a half mile from another cave. The canister was left for 24 hours to replicate a test that was done 10 years previously. To see if the results would be the same; the bug was pulled out and sent in to the lab. The lab called me and the physicists was furious saying that I was playing a game and whole sort of other things. Once I convinced him that the test was for real, what I was doing, and the reasons why. He finally gave me the results; he felt that it was his best extrapolation and he recalibrated his machines twice. The old reading from J. Buchanan test was 1,250,000. PCi/L the new one was 1,125,000. PCi/L. He then told me that the Alpha Track Particle Canister is too general of a test to use under high radon conditions which is anything above 30PCi/L. He told me of some new technology out that would be better suited to these studies.)
From J Buchanan report of 1989:
New Technology:
E-PERM(R) System is a passive integrating detector system for the measurement of radon/thoron concentrations in air. It consists of a charged Teflon disk(electret), open faced ionization chamber, and electret voltage reader and data logger. When the electret is screwed into the chamber, an electrostatic field is established and a passive ionization chamber is formed. The chamber is deployed directly in the area to be measured. Radon gas diffuses passively into the chamber and the alpha particles emitted from the decay of radon ionize the air molecules; the ions are attracted to the charged surface of the electret, and the electret charge originally present gets reduced. The electret charge is measured before and after the exposure with a portable electret voltage reader, and the rate of change of the charge(change divided by the time of exposure) is proportional to the concentration of radon in the area.
Another is the Gamma scout:
http://www.gammascout.com/
New studies on Little Mt (Phase 1):
The reading with the final volts as being near 0 is that the E-perm is “Cookedâ€