Uranium
In nature, uranium is found as uranium-238 (99.2739–99.2752%), uranium-235 (0.7198–0.7202%), and a very small amount of uranium-234 (0.0050–0.0059%). Uranium decays slowly by emitting an alpha particle. The half-life of uranium-238 is about 4.47 billion years and that of uranium-235 is 704 million years, making them useful in dating the age of the Earth.
Thorium fuel cycle
Uranium-232 has a relatively short half-life (), and some decay products emit high energy gamma radiation, such as , and particularly . The full decay chain, along with half-lives and relevant gamma energies, is: