Radioactive heat production of six geologically important nuclides

Abstract

Heat production rates for the geologically important nuclides 26Al, 40K, 60Fe, 232Th, 235U, and 238U 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 40K and with regard to the determination of half-lives. A Python script is provided for calculating heat production (https://github.com/trg818/radheat).