NATURAL RADIOACTIVITY VARIATION WITH SOME SOIL PROPERTIES

In an extension of our previous studies of environmental radiological
monitoring, the radionuclides activity concentrations (226Ra, 232Th, and 40K) were
estimated using gamma-ray spectrometry for three soil types (silt clay loam, clay loam,
and sandy clay loam) from three diverse regions adjacent to the Nile River in Egypt.
These measures were found to be 14 ± 1.34 to 29 ± 2.81, 5.7 ± 0.54 to 23.3 ± 2.34, and
113 ± 11 to 427 ± 41 Bq kg-1
, respectively. We aimed to investigate the correlation
between radionuclide concentrations in soils with different textural properties and
chemical parameters, such as hydrogen ion concentration (pH) and organic matter
(OM). The recorded values for soil pH ranged from 6.9 to 8.2, while the organic matter
content ranged from 0.4 to 2.6%. A correlation was observed between 40K activity
concentration and OM