Tectonic instability may be measured directly using extensometers installed across active faults or it may be indicated by anomalous natural gas concentrations in the vicinity of active faults. This paper presents the results of fault displacement monitoring at two sites in the Bohemian Massif and Western Carpathians. These data have been supplemented by radon monitoring in the Mladeč Caves and by carbon dioxide monitoring in the Zbrašov Aragonite Caves. A significant period of tectonic instability is indicated by changes in the fault displacement trends and by anomalous radon and carbon dioxide concentrations. This was recorded around the time of the catastrophic MW=9.0 Tōhoku Earthquake, which hit eastern Japan on 11 March 2011. It is tentatively suggested that the Tōhoku Earthquake in the Pacific Ocean and the unusual geodynamic activity recorded in the Bohemian Massif and Western Carpathians both reflect contemporaneous global tectonic changes.
The new RAMARN system for radon volume activity measurement was developed in 2003 and has been in use since then. RAMARN system consists of a plastic chamber that is conically cylindrical in shape and about 0.5 l in volume; a bare Kodak LR 115 is located on the bottom of this diffusion chamber. The size was chosen to avoid the influence of deposited decay products of radon. Kodak has a spectrometric character--the tracks are visualized only for alphas with energies between 1 and 3 MeV that touch the foil; thus the effective volume has a lens shape. The response therefore corresponds to diffused radon and half of (218)Po born by radon gas decay. The experiments described below were conducted as one part of a routine methodology control, focused on classifying worker irradiation from natural ionizing radiation sources in show caves and in caves used for speleotherapy.
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