Comparison of Radiation Levels in the Soil and Rocks in the Areas Surrounding Old Phosphate Mine, Russaifa, Jordan
Published Online: Jan 27, 2025
Page range: 55 - 64
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/lpts-2025-0005
Keywords
© 2025 I. Alhagaish et al., published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.
The activity concentrations of the terrestrial naturally occurring radionuclides 214Pb, 214Bi (from 238U series), and 228Ac (from 232Th series) and 40K were measured in soil and rock samples obtained from three sites of the Russaifa mine and its surrounding in the Russaifa region using an HPGe-detector of 20 % relative efficiency. While the soil activity (in Bq/kg) was found to be: 408.63 ± 26, 383.9 ± 4.7, and 383.0 ± 4.0 for 238U, 214Bi, and 214Pb, respectively. The rock activity was found to be 225.4 ± 19, 180.36 ± 3.9, and 179.47 ± 3.1 for 238U, 214Bi, and 214Pb, respectively. Our results reveal that the average activity concentrations in the mine (site 1) are higher than worldwide average values [