Radon: Radioactive Decay In Soil

Radon is a colorless, odorless gas that is the result of radioactive decay in soil. As radon continues to grow it rises to the top of the soil and makes its way into cracks in your basement floor. Exposure to radon is very harmful to your body and can cause lung cancer if not taken care of. Nearly 80% of counties in Minnesota itself contain high levels of radon.

The word radon came from the Latin word niton which meant shining. Eventually in 1923, radon officially got its name. In the year 1900, Friedrich Ernst Dorn discovered the element of radon and named it radium emanation. Later on, in 1908, Ramsay and Robert Gray modified the term radium emanation and instead called it niton. That same year they successfully determined its density and found it to be the heaviest known gas.

Radon can be found in several places but the four main places are soil, buildings, spring water and atmosphere.

of buildings. Estimations say that for every square mile of soil, there is about 1 g. of radium which then releases radon by small amounts and makes its way into the atmosphere. And last but not least, radon may also be in spring waters such as in the Hot Springs located in Arkansas.

Radon is the number two leading cause for lung cancer and the number one leading cause for smokers. Research shows that radon is responsible for about 21,000 death each year from which 2,900 of these deaths are people who do not smoke. Radon is especially harmful for smokers because their lungs are already weak so even if just a little bit of the dangerous gas gets into their system it’s causes serious damage. Indoor air pollution is another thing that is affected by radon. When radon gets into buildings it gets into the atmosphere causing pollution which then all leads back to lung