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Radioactivity of Soil in Croatia I: Naturally Occurring Decay Chains
The assessment of environmental radioactivity much relies on radionuclide content in soil. This stems from the significant contribution of soil to both external and internal exposure to ionising radiation via direct emission of gamma radiation and soil-to-plant radionuclide transfer, respectively. T...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Sciendo
2021
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8191431/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33787180 http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/aiht-2021-72-3439 |
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author | Šoštarić, Marko Petrinec, Branko Avdić, Mak Petroci, Ljerka Kovačić, Milica Zgorelec, Željka Skoko, Božena Bituh, Tomislav Senčar, Jasminka Branica, Gina Franić, Zdenko Franulović, Iva Rašeta, Davor Bešlić, Ivan Babić, Dinko |
author_facet | Šoštarić, Marko Petrinec, Branko Avdić, Mak Petroci, Ljerka Kovačić, Milica Zgorelec, Željka Skoko, Božena Bituh, Tomislav Senčar, Jasminka Branica, Gina Franić, Zdenko Franulović, Iva Rašeta, Davor Bešlić, Ivan Babić, Dinko |
author_sort | Šoštarić, Marko |
collection | PubMed |
description | The assessment of environmental radioactivity much relies on radionuclide content in soil. This stems from the significant contribution of soil to both external and internal exposure to ionising radiation via direct emission of gamma radiation and soil-to-plant radionuclide transfer, respectively. This motivated us to carry out a systematic research on the radioactivity of soil in Croatia to obtain relevant data that can be used as a basis for understanding the related effects of geomorphological, biogeographical, and climatological properties of the environment. We collected samples of the surface layer of uncultivated soil (0–10 cm) at 138 sites from all over the country and measured them for radionuclide activity concentrations by means of high-resolution gamma-ray spectrometry. This resulted in radioactivity maps containing data on activity concentrations of representative radionuclides in the environment. In this paper, which is the first in our two-part presentation, we focus on the naturally occurring (232)Th and (238)U decay chains and their correlations with the diversity of Croatian regions. For both of the chains, activity concentrations were the highest in the Dinaric region, the lowest in the Pannonian region, and intermediate in the Adriatic region. Relatively high concentrations of (226)Ra in the soil of the Dinaric region implied a possibility of an enhanced emanation of its progeny (222)Rn into the air. Activity concentrations of (210)Pb were additionally elevated in areas with dense vegetation, most probably due to an atmospheric deposition of airborne (210)Pb onto the surface of plants and their eventual decomposition on the ground. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8191431 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2021 |
publisher | Sciendo |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-81914312021-06-17 Radioactivity of Soil in Croatia I: Naturally Occurring Decay Chains Šoštarić, Marko Petrinec, Branko Avdić, Mak Petroci, Ljerka Kovačić, Milica Zgorelec, Željka Skoko, Božena Bituh, Tomislav Senčar, Jasminka Branica, Gina Franić, Zdenko Franulović, Iva Rašeta, Davor Bešlić, Ivan Babić, Dinko Arh Hig Rada Toksikol Original Article The assessment of environmental radioactivity much relies on radionuclide content in soil. This stems from the significant contribution of soil to both external and internal exposure to ionising radiation via direct emission of gamma radiation and soil-to-plant radionuclide transfer, respectively. This motivated us to carry out a systematic research on the radioactivity of soil in Croatia to obtain relevant data that can be used as a basis for understanding the related effects of geomorphological, biogeographical, and climatological properties of the environment. We collected samples of the surface layer of uncultivated soil (0–10 cm) at 138 sites from all over the country and measured them for radionuclide activity concentrations by means of high-resolution gamma-ray spectrometry. This resulted in radioactivity maps containing data on activity concentrations of representative radionuclides in the environment. In this paper, which is the first in our two-part presentation, we focus on the naturally occurring (232)Th and (238)U decay chains and their correlations with the diversity of Croatian regions. For both of the chains, activity concentrations were the highest in the Dinaric region, the lowest in the Pannonian region, and intermediate in the Adriatic region. Relatively high concentrations of (226)Ra in the soil of the Dinaric region implied a possibility of an enhanced emanation of its progeny (222)Rn into the air. Activity concentrations of (210)Pb were additionally elevated in areas with dense vegetation, most probably due to an atmospheric deposition of airborne (210)Pb onto the surface of plants and their eventual decomposition on the ground. Sciendo 2021-03-30 /pmc/articles/PMC8191431/ /pubmed/33787180 http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/aiht-2021-72-3439 Text en © 2021 Marko Šoštarić, Branko Petrinec, Mak Avdić, Ljerka Petroci, Milica Kovačić, Željka Zgorelec, Božena Skoko, Tomislav Bituh, Jasminka Senčar, Gina Branica, Zdenko Franić, Iva Franulović, Davor Rašeta, Ivan Bešlić, and Dinko Babić, published by Sciendo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. |
spellingShingle | Original Article Šoštarić, Marko Petrinec, Branko Avdić, Mak Petroci, Ljerka Kovačić, Milica Zgorelec, Željka Skoko, Božena Bituh, Tomislav Senčar, Jasminka Branica, Gina Franić, Zdenko Franulović, Iva Rašeta, Davor Bešlić, Ivan Babić, Dinko Radioactivity of Soil in Croatia I: Naturally Occurring Decay Chains |
title | Radioactivity of Soil in Croatia I: Naturally Occurring Decay Chains |
title_full | Radioactivity of Soil in Croatia I: Naturally Occurring Decay Chains |
title_fullStr | Radioactivity of Soil in Croatia I: Naturally Occurring Decay Chains |
title_full_unstemmed | Radioactivity of Soil in Croatia I: Naturally Occurring Decay Chains |
title_short | Radioactivity of Soil in Croatia I: Naturally Occurring Decay Chains |
title_sort | radioactivity of soil in croatia i: naturally occurring decay chains |
topic | Original Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8191431/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33787180 http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/aiht-2021-72-3439 |
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