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High background radiation places and spatial distribution of uranium in groundwater of monazite placer deposit in Kanniyakumari district, Tamil Nadu, India

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Abstract

The present investigation deals with gamma radiation survey and analysis of uranium in groundwater samples collected from the Kanniyakumari district. It reveals that gamma dose rate varies from 58 to 3880 nSv/h (mean 276 nSv/h) and uranium concentration varies from ≤ 0.2 to 10 µg/L (median 0.4 µg/L) in the pre-monsoon and ≤ 0.2 to 14.9 µg/L (median 0.2 µg/L) in the post-monsoon seasons. The present study shows that Manavalakurichi and Indranagar junctions have high background radiation due to the monazite placer deposits. The alkaline and reductive nature of groundwater minimizes the leaching of uranium from these monazite placer deposits.

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Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support from the Board of Research in Nuclear Sciences, BARC, Mumbai, India (36(4)/14/72/2014-BRNS). Our heartfelt thanks to Dr.S.Chidambaram, Division of Water Resources, Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research, Kuwait, for helping to plot the spatial diagrams using the GIS Software.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chemistry Research Centre, National Engineering College, K.R. Nagar, Kovilpatti, Thoothukudi District, Tamil Nadu, 628 503, India

    V. Raja & M. A. Neelakantan

  2. Health Physics Division, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay, Mumbai, 400 085, India

    Sunil Kumar Sahoo

  3. Health Physics Unit, Indian Rare Earth Limited, Manavalakurichi, Kanniyakumari District, Tamil Nadu, 629 252, India

    K. Sreekumar

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  1. V. Raja
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Correspondence to M. A. Neelakantan.

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Raja, V., Sahoo, S.K., Sreekumar, K. et al. High background radiation places and spatial distribution of uranium in groundwater of monazite placer deposit in Kanniyakumari district, Tamil Nadu, India. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 328, 925–939 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-021-07727-7

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