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A similar radiogenic series is derived from the long-lived radioactive primordial nuclide 232 Th. These nuclides are described as geogenic, meaning that they are decay or fission products of uranium or other actinides in subsurface rocks. [6] All such nuclides have shorter half-lives than their parent radioactive primordial nuclides.
One of the primordial nuclides is tantalum-180m, which is predicted to have a half-life in excess of 10 15 years, but has never been observed to decay. The even-longer half-life of 2.2 × 10 24 years of tellurium-128 was measured by a unique method of detecting its radiogenic daughter xenon-128 and is the longest known experimentally measured ...
Radiogenic heating occurs as a result of the release of heat energy from radioactive decay [4] during the production of radiogenic nuclides. Along with heat from the Primordial Heat (resulting from planetary accretion), radiogenic heating occurring in the mantle and crust make up the two main sources of heat in the Earth's interior. [5]
At least 3,300 nuclides have been experimentally characterized [1] (see List of radioactive nuclides by half-life for the nuclides with decay half-lives less than one hour). A nuclide is defined conventionally as an experimentally examined bound collection of protons and neutrons that either is stable or has an observed decay mode .
They occur in the decay chains of primordial isotopes of uranium or thorium. Some of these nuclides are very short-lived, such as isotopes of francium. There exist about 51 of these daughter nuclides that have half-lives too short to be primordial, and which exist in nature solely due to decay from longer lived radioactive primordial nuclides.
By convention, certain stable nuclides of lithium, beryllium, and boron are thought to have been produced by cosmic ray spallation in the period of time between the Big Bang and the Solar System's formation (thus making these primordial nuclides, by definition) are not termed "cosmogenic", even though they were formed by the same process as the ...
Star formation has been occurring continuously in galaxies since that time. The primordial nuclides were created by Big Bang nucleosynthesis, stellar nucleosynthesis, supernova nucleosynthesis, and by nucleosynthesis in exotic events such as neutron star collisions. Other nuclides, such as 40 Ar, formed later through radioactive decay. On Earth ...
Most natural transmutation on the Earth today is mediated by cosmic rays (such as production of carbon-14) and by the radioactive decay of radioactive primordial nuclides left over from the initial formation of the Solar System (such as potassium-40, uranium and thorium), plus the radioactive decay of products of these nuclides (radium, radon ...