Abstract
The activity concentration and the gamma-absorbed dose rates of the terrestrial naturally occurring radionuclides (232Th, 226Ra and 40K) were determined in soil samples collected from ten different locations of Sirsa district of Haryana, using HPGe detector based on high-resolution gamma spectrometry system. The range of activity concentrations of 226Ra, 232Th and 40K in the soil samples from the studied areas varies from 19.18 Bq kg−1 (Moriwala) to 40.31 Bq kg−1 (Rori), 59.43 Bq kg−1 (Pipli) to 89.54 Bq kg−1 (Fatehpur) and 223.22 Bq kg−1 (Moriwala) to 313.32 Bq kg−1 (SamatKhera) with overall mean values of 27.94, 72.75 and 286.73 Bq kg−1 respectively. The absorbed dose rate calculated from activity concentration of 226Ra, 232Th and 40K ranges between 8.84 and 18.58, 37.02 and 55.78, and 9.24 and 12.97 nGy h−1, respectively. The total absorbed dose in the study area ranges from 60.40 to 82.15 nGy h−1 with an average value of 70.12 nGy h−1. The calculated values of external hazard index (H ex) for the soil samples of the study area range from 0.36 to 0.49 with an average value of 0.42.
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Acknowledgments
The authors are thankful to the residents of the study area for their cooperation during the fieldwork, and the officials of Health Physics Lab of Inter University Accelerator Centre, New Delhi for their support in providing the necessary equipments for gamma ray spectrometry.
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Mehra, R., Kumar, S., Sonkawade, R. et al. Analysis of terrestrial naturally occurring radionuclides in soil samples from some areas of Sirsa district of Haryana, India using gamma ray spectrometry. Environ Earth Sci 59, 1159–1164 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-009-0108-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-009-0108-3