Posted on Feb 6, 2004

Robert Fleischer,
research professor of geology, is the author of an article on etching of recoil
tracks in solids in the December 2003 issue of Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta,
the journal of the Geochemical Society. Fleischer writes that isolated places
of atomic disorder in minerals, called recoil tracks (caused by radioactive decay
of uranium and thorium) are important to a variety of fields, including
radiation damage, disposal of nuclear waste, radiometric dating of minerals,
ion implantation, isotopic irregularities in nature, disordering of minerals on
planetary surfaces, and radon release from the earth.