Radioactivity of the Earth and the Case for Potassium in the Earth’s Core

The radioactivity of the earth is an important parameter in understanding the dynamics of the planet and the evolution of the crust–mantle–core system but geochemical and geophysical approaches have had only a limited success in defining it. The opportunity of a direct estimate of the radioactivity of the earth by measurement of the geoneutrino flux takes on an added significance in this context. Such an independent new measurement will help resolve and/or clarify a number of questions about global scale processes in the earth and will help advance earth sciences.