Demistifing ion chambers and snake oil

[Max]

Hi all,
I've read a lot of posts regarding LRL divices like mineoro
and others (dowsing kind) and I'm very sceptic that one of these
devices actually works.
I mean I know a dowser-man (seems like a navaho
shimano or something) hanging around some strange wood pieces that
(he said) he uses to find water and other things (and belive me, he can
-I see him using the dowsing "Wood"- really identifing a water plane
I know that exist and that is still undocumented in our areas) but
can't explain how he phisically do that. Don't know if he can "detect"
other things , like a gold ore.
I read about ionic chambers here and just want to explain what I know
of these devices do demistify some aspects.
There's nothing magic in a ion chamber. It's simply a sensor really close to
a geiger tube but with some differencies.
A tipical geiger tube is made of thin
aluminium with a central electrode (usually tungsten) with some low pressure gas
inside (usually argon but could be some mix of helium-neon-argon plus some
hi-density organic compound like ethanol), then polarized with say 600-800 volts
between outer electrode (tube) and central electrode. Some types have also one or
more "windows" to allow alpha particles (he-nuclei) to enter in the tube: windows
are usually made of thin silicates or plastic material. Normally a geiger tube
detect only gamma-rays (hi freq. em radiations like x-rays) and beta (accelerated
electrons) becouse haven't any window. In simple words it works like this:
when a particle enters the tube it can hit some atom of gas (argon) ---> the hit
produces a ionic pair (the ionized atom + an electron).
The hi voltage field makes the pair elements really accelerated
and a cascade effect (more ions and electrons) is then produced resulting in a current
flowing in the tube caused by the elements of the pair moving to electrodes,
thus recombining and then resaturating the tube with non-ionized gas.
It's a kind of cascade amplifier with a very fast recovery time (so counts can be
accurate also in presence of a huge number of radiations per second) with a
time-unit-counter. It's becouse all radiation units indicates the ammount of
radiations detected in the time unit.

A tipical ion chamber looks like the geiger tube described above BUT:
- usually dry air (normal pressure, 1 ATM) is used
- low voltage is required (usually under 100 volt, in some cases under 10 volts)
- there isn't any window
- the process here hasn't a cascade amplification so the little pair generation
and recombination cause currents that are really small (usually under 10^-12 amperes)
- a hi-impedance , very low bias and leakeage amplifier is needed to detect signals
- modern ion chambers all use chopper amplifiers (to avoid dc drifting/noise)
- EVERY KIND of ionizing RADIATION can produce pairs here
So, every ionizing source (sun light, uv-light, ac fields, natural radiation -rad gas mainly-,
cosmic rays, x-rays, ...but also your digital watch, your mechanical watch with radium activated
night markers, your mobile phone, your mp3 player, you favourite radio station etc. etc. etc. )
can produce pairs in the chamber if the signal is enough, and also a low humididy can perturbate the
pairs migration in huge variations.
Anyway, I repeat, EVERY KIND OF IONIZING RADIATION --> ionic chambers do not detect ions if they
aren't in ionizing radiation behaviour, I mean they must have a hi-speed (like alpha particles) to penetrate the
(thin) walls of the chamber. Actually no alpha particles can be detected with a normal ion chamber,
becouse of the absence of the thin silicate/plastic window : typical small chambers are fully metal
enclosed, and even if ions are highly accelerated they simply can't break the barrier as other things
can (like e.g. hi-energy photons).
So normal ionic chambers DO NOT detect ions from the outside environment but internal ion pairs generated
by some radiation (mostly x-ray, gamma-ray, uv and strong ac/rf signals).
The strange assert that a ionic chamber DETECT ION PAIRS (OR COLLISIONS) FROM THE OUTSIDE WORLD is then
an scientific false, covered with good advertising champains.
The assert that ion chambers CAN DETECT GOLD IONS ONLY is completely false becouse of they works on
electric charges recombination and the electron charge value is the same for every chemical element
(in the real world).

So, if any of these strange things really works for sure it's not by external target IONIC DETECTION.

Best regards,
Max

[Chris2]

Hi Max,

good post! But I think most of the "Mineoro Fan Comunity" doesn’t understand your comments because they simply are not educated in how electronic and physics works. Ask around and you will see. I'm sure none of them has a university degree in physics or electronic engineering.
Conclusion is they become believers of what they don't understand in the first place.

Chris

[Crowbar]

Well done, MAX.

[Alexismex]

so good post Max thanks,
Alexis

[okantex]

here is a key to puzzle
second product of gold mining companyies is uranium ore.
today's gold is produced by electrolyzes and it is pure because of production process.
what about the gold of old times.are they pure?
or can be uranium inside of it's mixture.
if so,
yes mineoro detects ions but not gold.
uranium generally fonuds with gold and silver ores.
regards

[Max]

Originally Posted by okantex

here is a key to puzzle
second product of gold mining companyies is uranium ore.
today's gold is produced by electrolyzes and it is pure because of production process.
what about the gold of old times.are they pure?
or can be uranium inside of it's mixture.
if so,
yes mineoro detects ions but not gold.
uranium generally fonuds with gold and silver ores.
regards

Hi Okantex,
"what about the gold of old times.are they pure?
or can be uranium inside of it's mixture."

I'm not a geo-degree but try to answer with what I know.

BTW This post must be technical oriented. (no simple words to talk about complex things! I'll try to make
it easier as I can)
I have realized that Mineoro claims its units "can find gold", not "gold of old times" but anyway let's
talk about old-gold.
Well, I know that old time gold has, generally speaking, a lot of impurities inside the matrix. Yes, it's
true. That's becouse of the old extraction methods and artifacts manifacturing in the past. Gold is a perfect
recyclable element (like aluminium) and may be re-fused indefinitely. So contamination could appear also
outside the "mine/ore" way - just by fusion, tools and manifacturing e.g. , for coins, the coiniage process.
But talk about uranium or other radioactive materials (mainly radium, thorium) : yes they can be present in
the ore/mine. It happens sometimes like in some Syberian mines or in the US also where gold and radioactive
materials are often in the same ore (some old Colorado mines are examples). It's rare instead in Egiptian
ancient gold (as I know) becouse of the native nature of the gold ore inclused in quartz crystals.
Also it's not so frequent in south-africa and australian gold mines. Don't know in South and Central America.

Anyway, it's possible that gold ore can be contamained by radioactive elements. So ancient gold could be for
sure.

All depend on how much is contamination in the mass unit and what type of elements and intensity of ionizing
radiations are developed. There are a number of variables involved like the percentage of elements, isothopes,
decading factors etc so a unique model of radiating behaviour is impossible to make before excavation and
analisis.

Another issue is that Mineoro can't detect airborn ions (or any other ion outside the so called "ion chamber").

Then why trying to find gold using radiations ?
The total ammount of radiation in an ancient gold artifact or bar could be thousand times lower than radon gas
trapped in the ground around the object or than the minerals that are in the ground matrix
- making impossible to reveal the target emission from the background radiations emission.

Another issue, is "why use a ion chamber instead of a normal geiger counter" ? I mean...if one would find some
radiations out there the geiger tube will overcome any ion chamber in such a task. Modern geiger counter units
are cheapy (say 200$) an hi-reliable e.g. 100 or more times respect to any small ion chamber, and they identify
ONLY wanted radiations (beta, gamma, alpha) - no radio stations etc.

Anyway, no gamma-rays, no alpha particles, no beta-rays can be related to a specific kind of primary element
(contamained gold or other metal) , just becouse they are always the same for every source of them.
Decading elements (like cesium isothopes) can be identified only using a mass-spectrometer in a vacuum environment
or other kinds of heavy and non-portable technologies. So any radioactive-to-gold interaction is simply undetectable
in a search field environment.

So it's impossible, this way, to make any specific element (gold) detection or discrimination.

Best regards,
Max

[Rudy]

Originally Posted by okantex

here is a key to puzzle
second product of gold mining companyies is uranium ore.
today's gold is produced by electrolyzes and it is pure because of production process.
what about the gold of old times.are they pure?
or can be uranium inside of it's mixture.
if so,
yes mineoro detects ions but not gold.
uranium generally fonuds with gold and silver ores.
regards

Okantex, your suggestion appears plausible, but it does not explain the claim that one can bury "new" jewelry grade gold and after a few weeks of being underground it can be detected. Clearly gold is not a Uranium magnet, so the buried jewelry is not going to be detectable by this method.

[Max]

Originally Posted by Chris2

Hi Max,

good post! But I think most of the "Mineoro Fan Comunity" doesn’t understand your comments because they simply are not educated in how electronic and physics works. Ask around and you will see. I'm sure none of them has a university degree in physics or electronic engineering.
Conclusion is they become believers of what they don't understand in the first place.

Chris

Hi Chris,
I've appreciate your post making me focusing on the language I've used. Thanks.
I apologize for the too technically involved post above to anyone that doesn't know much
of physics and electronics - sometimes I write without taking into account that many haven't
the technical education to follow some posts. I'll take into account for future.
I agree that many people like the "Mineoro Fan Comunity" maybe follow the advertize out there
without a deeper understanding of what they actually buy. My post wasn't related only to the
Mineoro's units out there but to all kind of ion chambers claims related to long range ionic
detection.
I'll try to explain my point of view in more simple words for the "man of the street" buyer.
-the "man of the street" buyer guide-
Anyway, it's like when someone with enough money and little understanding of engineering buy an
hidrogen powered car (or a fuel cell one) thinking that it'll be completely safe for the Eart's
environment or that can't produce any little total warming increase. Well, only a tech oriented
mind could think that the fuel used it's not ready available in nature, but needs, to be extracted
from water, a huge ammount of electric energy and to be hi-pressurized (liquid !) other energy...
and so on. So the whole process hasn't , at now, any respect for the nature.
It's inefficient and not completely safe for the end user and the nature.
We produce most of our electric energy using nuclear or gas/oil/carbon burning - dirty tecnhologies.
In future maybe we'll have clean energy and at no costs, and such kind of fuel could became the right
choice,but now ONLY advertising can push ahead this technology.
One difference between remote ionic detection chambers and eco-cars is that the second example
works although it's not efficient and not safe (think about some wrong missile-test of the 60'
- Hidrogen forms explosives mixtures with oxigen and it's extremely dangerous to handle), but the
first doesn't/can't work in any case becouse ionic pairs must be inside the chamber to be revealed!
It's a little drawback !
So remote ionic detection really won't works in these commercial LRL units. This is a fact.
Any college student - with little physics background - can say. Try to ask around, to have some info
from your old science teacher - why not? - sending an email to a doctorate guy. They will answer what
I say: NO REMOTE IONIC DETECTION USING ION CHAMBERS.
I also was wondered that some LRL sell around - so I've discussed the topic with many friends with
physics and eng degree and no one say "maybe" this or "maybe" that --> all answer "impossible",
"doesn't make sense", "no way"...
I'm not saying that Mineoro units don't work (I never tested one) but JUST that the principle of
operation they say (remote ionic detection) is fake stuff and, last, only an adversiting strategy.
Some dubts make our life safer than "no dubts at all".
What I want to tell is DON'T belive in advertising. Just a bit of common sense can avoid an unuseful
thousand dollars expense - do you think that if someone have realized such kind of detector he/she
wan't to put them on the market ? and without a patent ? do you think that if the principle of
operation declared is fake (fact) these units work anyway (maybe using some mystical-new-age
detection process) ? if so, buy it ! No one can help you anymore.
Do you think that, if this technology works, any big manifacturer don't want to enter the business too ?
White's, Garrett, Minelab, Fisher etc etc don't want to produce that stuff becouse they are real big
industries with a "name" to defend : no big company want to make a wallmart-like detector of treasures.
They aren't worried of patents of others here (there are no patents at all!) but of the consequences of such a
production: they already sell huge numbers of standard metal detectors in the world and don't want to
lose their fame of good manifactures - in any case any m.d. produced really works and results are proved.
No big companies, yeah, but small ones, maybe in some exotic place, would make it for you!
Just common sense rules. Yeah. But would you like to buy a car that the manifacture claims "can fly",
for only $1000000 cash without a little test drive or warranty?

It's up to you.

-end of the "man of the street" buyer guide-

Best regards,
Max