Nexus - 0304 - New Times Magazine-pages

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Electronic dowsing devices are revolutionising the detection of underground water, oil and mineral deposits as well as radiations that are hazardous to health. Part 2 quipped with a photomultiplier tube with a quantum efficiency of 35 per cent, it can register information from an ore sample 25 feet distant which ordinary com- mercial scintillators of five to 10 per cent efficiency can pick up only one foot away. Bickel, who has also been able to perform such miracles as growing six- pound lemons by stimulating the roots of lemon trees with specific ultrasonic frequencies, says that his “Algor Super Scintillation Counter" depends on the fact that constant changes due to crystallisation in geological formations that have been going on for half a billion years can, through the proper use of isotope detection, provide clues about what lies below ground. Before 1913 it was believed that each and every atom of any clement was identical in mass. Then it was discovered that an atom could, under certain natural conditions, lose or gain a particle, thereby altering its mass and energy state. These altered atoms, which were later produced artificially in atom-smashers, needed a new name. Called "isotopes", their nuclei had the same number of protons but different numbers of neutrons. By 1921 Francis William Aston in England had detected 202 isotopes in 71 elements. Today the number has risen to more than 1,500 with an average of four to each element. Only 10 per cent of all known isotopes are found in nature where they can be produced by the interaction of radiations from radioactive substances in the interior of the Earth or cos- mic rays from outer space. The rest are engendered by artificial excitation. Thus, a nor- mal gold atom, represented as »Au'” (meaning that Au, short for the Latin word aurum— gold—has 197 heavier particles in its nucleus, of which 79 are charged protons and 118 uncharged neutrons), can be artificially altered to produce different isotopes from »wAu’* to wAu™, only one of which, »Au'*, is abundantly found in nature. It is the energy from this single natural isotope which is detectable by the Bickel invention. In May 1974, Bickel was invited to explore the area around the Paul Isnard gold mine, 150 kilometres from Saint Laurent du Maroni in French Guiana. Operating from an air- plane, his machine recorded only average to below-average readings for gold above the mine site. Above-average readings indicated ‘hot spots’ for gold in many places five to 20 kilometres from the mine in two directions. Copper mineralisation was also located, says Bickel, near the town of Santonia. Given the near impossibility of surveying densely wooded terrain normally found in places like French Guiana, Bickel may be correct in stating that his super scintillation detector "is the only tool for exploring South American jungles". Bickel reported that his scintillators are currently being used by diamond-seekers in South Africa to search for undiscovered funnel-shaped bodies of bluish diamond-rich rock called "Kimberlite pipes". Volcanic in origin, Kimberlite ore has subnormally low radioactivity common to the basalt family of which it is a member. Therefore, when Bickel’s counter provides a near-zero negative reading, it indicates a likely place to find one of the "pipes". Bickel asserts that he has twice detected a “complete blackout"—a zero negative read- ing—in California, one of which, he believes, indicates a 30-foot-diameter funnel on Figueroa Mountain, 50 miles north of Santa Barbara. The blackouts, he says, can only be caused by Kimberlite ore deposits or pipes of active thermal steam. Intensive aerial search may locate many more of them. Bickel is confident that his invention's greatest potential lies in its adaptability to oil- search. Oil-bearing formations act as buffers to block the normal background radiation by Christopher Bird © 1979, 1995 8165 Dockery Road Blairsville, GA 30512, USA Phone +1 (706) 745 8202 Fax +1 (706) 745 9169 NEXUS ¢ 39 JUNE-JULY 1996 ARMIN BICKEL'S SUPER SCINTILLATION COUNTER