Radioactive heat production of six geologically important nuclides

摘要

Heat production rates for the geologically important nuclides Al-26, K-40, Fe-60, Th-232, U-235, and U-238 are calculated on the basis of recent data on atomic and nuclear properties. The revised data differ by several percent 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 K-40 and with regard to the determination of half-lives. A Python script is provided for calculating heat production (https://github.com/trg818/radheat).