Hydrogen isotope biogeochemistry reactors in 1988, but nuclear weapons testing in the 1950s added large spikes of radioactive elements to the atmosphere, especially radiocarbon and tritium. This complicated measurements for geologists using radiometric dating of carbon. However, some oceanographers benefited from the tritium increase, utilizing the signal in the water to trace physical mixing of water masses. In biogeochemistry, scientists focused primarily on the stable isotope of deuterium as a tracer for environmental processes, especially the water cycle. The American geochemist Harmon Craig, once a graduate student of Urey's, discovered the relationship between rainwater's hydrogen and oxygen isotope ratios. The linear correlation between
Radioactive tracer Tc in autoradiography and nuclear medicine, including single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), positron emission tomography (PET) and scintigraphy. The urea breath test for helicobacter pylori commonly used a dose of C labeled urea to detect h. pylori infection. If the labeled urea was metabolized by h. pylori in the stomach, the patient's breath would contain labeled carbon dioxide. In recent years, the use of substances enriched in the non-radioactive isotope C has become the preferred method, avoiding patient exposure to radioactivity. In hydraulic fracturing, radioactive tracer isotopes are injected with hydraulic fracturing fluid to determine the injection profile and