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Evaluation of gamma activities of naturally occurring radioactive materials in uncontaminated surface soils of Jamaica

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Abstract

In this study a geological, lithological or pedogenesis analysis is used to explain the values and distribution of the primordial specific gamma activities in the Jamaican soil environment. A random systematic sampling method resulted in Jamaica being divided into 50 square grids with a maximum sampling density of 225 square meters per sample. The resulting sixty-eight (68) samples were measured on a Canberra HPGe detector for 24 h and the photopeaks for the primordial gammas of 238U, 232Th and 40K analyzed. Spearman’s correlation was used to investigate the relationships between the primordial specific activities and the geological features of the soil samples collected and the geographic information system, ArcGIS v10.1 used to graphically depict the gamma profile of the primordials across the island. The Kruskal–Wallis test indicated that in general the variations of the primordial gamma specific activities over the underlying soil geologies were statistically significant. However, the pairwise Post-Hoc test results did not suggest a significant variation in mean specific for any of the primordial with all the underlying geology even when the unadjusted p value was used. This result along with the Spearman’s coefficient correlation values suggested a moderate to weak relationship between the gamma profile of the top soil and its underlying geology. With the exception of a weak correlation with 232Th (−0.295) no other primordial radionuclide correlated with the UNESCO/FAO soil categories for the island. The most significant correlations for soil characteristics and gamma activities were organic matters which were positive for 232Th (0.518), 238U (0.481) but negative for 40K (−0.284).

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Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge the kind cooperation of the following organizations: The Rural Physical Planning Authority, Ministry of Agriculture, Jamaica, The Department of Geology and Geography, the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, and The Mona Geoinformatics Institute.

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  1. Department of Physics, Faculty of Science and Technology, University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Kingston, 6, Jamaica

    Maurice Miller & Mitko Voutchkov

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  1. Maurice Miller
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  2. Mitko Voutchkov
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Correspondence to Maurice Miller.

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Miller, M., Voutchkov, M. Evaluation of gamma activities of naturally occurring radioactive materials in uncontaminated surface soils of Jamaica. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 300, 303–313 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-014-3000-x

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