Ask HN: Does old concrete reveal information about air quality?

88 points

7 years ago

I noticed a worker at a demolition site using power tools to extract cylinders from an old concrete wall. While I'm sure this particular project isn't aimed at scientific research, it made me wonder if there's a demolition-materials equivalent of ice core research.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_core

After all, steel has a different level of radioactivity depending on whether it was manufactured before 1945 (!).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-background_steel

Could there be similar properties in old concrete where one could learn interesting things about the composition of the nearby air at the time the concrete was first poured?

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