Radioactive heat production of six geologically important nuclides

TL;DR

This paper calculates heat production rates for six key geologically important nuclides using recent atomic and nuclear data, providing updated values with improved accuracy for geoscience applications.

Contribution

It offers revised heat production values based on recent data, along with a Python tool for calculations, enhancing precision in geoscience modeling.

Findings

Revised heat production rates differ by several percent from older values.

Recent data analyses show convergence toward more accurate values.

A Python script is provided for easy calculation of heat production.

Abstract

Heat production rates for the geologically important nuclides ${}^{26}$Al, ${}^{40}$K, ${}^{60}$Fe, ${}^{232}$Th, ${}^{235}$U, and ${}^{238}$U are calculated on the basis of recent data on atomic and nuclear properties. The revised data differ by several per cent from some older values, but indicate that more recent analyses converge toward values with an accuracy sufficient for all common geoscience applications, although some possibilities for improvement still remain, especially in the case of ${}^{40}$K and with regard to the determination of half-lives. A Python script is provided for calculating heat production (https://github.com/trg818/radheat).