Monitoring of natural radionuclides by alpha scintillometry and gamma spectrometry techniques in soil of district Palwal, Southern Haryana, India.

Forty soil samples from district Palwal of Southern Haryana, India were collected to estimates the radon/thoron exhalation rate using scintillation detector-based SMART RnDuo out of which twenty samples were tested to estimate the activity of 226Ra, 232Th and 40K using high purity germanium (HPGe) gamma-ray spectrometry. The radon mass exhalation rate (mBqkg−1h−1) was observed as {range (mean)} {16 ± 1–48 ± 3 (28 ± 8)} and thoron surface exhalation rate (Bqm−2h−1) was observed as {1800 ± 198–6331 ± 205 (3850 ± 850)}. Activities of radium (226Ra), thorium (232Th) and potassium (40K) were {range (mean)} observed as {28.4–48.4 (40.0 ± 1.4)}, {49.7–75.0 (62.7 ± 1.6)} and {432–698 (522.9 ± 17.6)}, respectively. It is observed that the radium in 75% samples while thorium and potassium in all samples were found to higher than the world's average values of 35, 30 and 400 Bqkg−1, respectively, as reported by UNSCEAR. Average of radon mass exhalation and thoron surface exhalation rates exceeded the world's mean value 57 mBq kg−1 h−1 and 3600 Bq m−2 h−1, respectively. Health hazard index is well below the unity (< 1), which indicates that there are no gamma radiation hazards associated with samples collected from the study region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]