Natural environmental radioactivity in the soil of Terengganu State, Malaysia

Abstract

The activity concentrations of naturally occurring radionuclides in environmental medium such as soil play an important role in setting national and international average doses to public for radiation protection purposes. This work measures the activity concentrations of the naturally occurring radionuclides (226 Ra, 232Th and 40K) in soil samples of Terengganu state, Malaysia using hyper pure germanium (HPGe) spectrometry. The mean (range) activity concentrations of 226Ra, 232Th, and 40K in the soil samples 79 ± 3 (20 ± 1 - 151 ± 5) Bq kg-1 with the mean value of Bq kg-1 for 226Ra; 84 ± 3 (8 ± 1 - 182 ± 6) Bq kg-1 for 232Th, and 545 ± 55 (47 ± 5 - 1056 ± 107) Bq kg-1 for 40K. Upon comparing these values with the world averages for 226Ra, 232Th and 40K, which are 33, 36 and 474 Bq kg-1, respectively. It is therefore, evidently seen that the mean activity concentrations of 226Ra and 232Th in the soil of Terengganu are slightly more than twice their corresponding global averages. The mean activity concentration of 40K in the soil of Terengganu is ~ 15% higher than the world average.