National Uranium Resource Evaluation: literature survey on radon distributions in soil and air. Final report

Technical Report · Fri Sep 01 00:00:00 EDT 1978

OSTI ID:5441418

Rubin, R M

Aerial survey techniques for locating uranium-ore deposits measure the gamma rays emitted by /sup 214/Bi and /sup 210/Pb, daughters of the /sup 238/U chain. Measured gamma-ray activity must be corrected to yield the contribution from ground activity. At present, the separation of background (radon daughter activity, cosmic rays, etc.) from the ground contribution is not performed adequately. As part of the effort to develop a better method of removing airborne radon daughter gamma-ray contributions from the total, a survey of available information on the emanation rate of /sup 222/Rn from the ground and the vertical distribution of /sup 222/Rn in the air was undertaken. Approximately 141 references were consulted. Of these, thirty-nine were related to ground emanation data, and sixty were related to vertical distributions. The remainder were either related to detection of radon or only indirectly related. A complete list of the literature consulted is given in Section V. The literature tends to confirm the values of input quantities and output vertical distributions used by Lampley and Wells. Emanation rates from non uranium ore bearing soil are of the order of .037 Bq/m/sup 2/ sec (1.pCi/m/sup 2/sec). Vertical distribution of radon tends to vary slowly and exponentially with altitude. Ground level values of the radon concentration are of the order of 4 Bq/m/sup 3/ (100 pCi/m/sup 3/).

• Research Organization: Radiation Research Associates, Inc., Fort Worth, TX (USA)
• DOE Contract Number: EY-76-C-13-1664
• OSTI ID: 5441418
• Report Number(s): GJBX-110(80); RRA-T-7808; TRN: 80-009291
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

11 NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE AND FUEL MATERIALS
BISMUTH 214
GAMMA SPECTROSCOPY
LEAD 210
RADON
DISTRIBUTION
URANIUM DEPOSITS
AERIAL PROSPECTING
AERIAL SURVEYING
AIR
RADIOMETRIC SURVEYS
RADON 222
SOILS
ALPHA DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
BETA DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
BETA-MINUS DECAY RADIOISOTOPES
BISMUTH ISOTOPES
DAYS LIVING RADIOISOTOPES
ELEMENTS
EVEN-EVEN NUCLEI
FLUIDS
GASES
GEOLOGIC DEPOSITS
GEOPHYSICAL SURVEYS
HEAVY NUCLEI
ISOTOPES
LEAD ISOTOPES
MINUTES LIVING RADIOISOTOPES
NONMETALS
NUCLEI
ODD-ODD NUCLEI
PROSPECTING
RADIOISOTOPES
RADON ISOTOPES
RARE GASES
RESOURCES
SPECTROSCOPY
SURVEYS
YEARS LIVING RADIOISOTOPES
050200* - Nuclear Fuels- Exploration- (-1987)