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One Hundred Years Ago: The Birth of Uranium-Series Science

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One hundred years ago: the date is 1903, and it is an auspicious year in the history of radiochemistry. 1903 witnessed the first published version of a radioactive decay chain; the submission of Marie Curie’s doctoral thesis; the award of the Nobel prize for physics to Becquerel and the Curies; and the recognition that radioactivity released both heat and He, with important implications for the age of the Earth and for absolute dating. These events were part of the rapid development of a new science that followed the discovery of radioactivity in 1896. For those geochemists familiar with U-series geochemistry, the early history of the field can make fascinating reading. In these early years, armed only with simple chemistry (the mass spectrometer, for instance, was not to be invented until 1918), the pioneers of the field were able to piece together an almost complete picture of the three naturally occurring decay series. This preface provides a brief introduction to this period of discovery—discovery that underlies all the geochemical applications detailed in the chapters that follow.

As the end of the 19^th century approached, several workers were investigating the recently discovered X-rays. One of these, Henri Becquerel, discovered that phosphorescent uranium salts released penetrating rays, distinct from X-rays, which were capable of exposing photographic plates (Becquerel 1896b). In a key, but somewhat fortuitous experiment, Becquerel demonstrated that the rays from the uranium salts did not require light in order to be emitted and were therefore independent of the phosphorescence (Becquerel 1896a). Becquerel had discovered radioactivity, although it was two years before this name was coined (by Marie Curie) and the phenomenon was initially termed "Becquerel" radiation, or "uranic" radiation. This discovery was pursued by Marie Curie who checked the radioactivity of many compounds and minerals. She demonstrated . . . [Full Text of this Article]