Data leading to the investigation of a relation between seismic activity and airborne radon decay product concentrations outdoors

Publisher Summary Systematic monitoring of airborne radon decay product concentrations outdoors has been a part of the Athens area environmental radioactivity-monitoring program of the Nuclear Engineering Section of the National Technical University of Athens (NES–NTUA) since the mid-1980s. One of the monitoring systems consists of a sodium-iodide (NaI) detector and appropriate electronics including a spectrum stabilizer suitable to compensate for spectrum shifts mainly due to large temperature variations. This finding suggested that an increase of radon decay product concentration outdoors might be an earthquake precursory signal for the area under study. This chapter presents a first attempt at the analysis of such data. The analysis results indicate that the monitoring method gives a reliable indication of an earthquake within a reasonable time window. The method may prove useful if combined with other similar earthquake forerunner tools.