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Activity concentrations of primordial radionuclides in sediments of surface– water dams in southwest Nigeria –a baseline survey

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2008

M. O. Isinkaye  and
I. P. Farai
M. O. Isinkaye
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Ado-Ekiti, P.M.B 5363, Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria
I. P. Farai
Affiliation:
Department of Physics, University of Ibadan, Nigeria
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Abstract

The radionuclide contents of sediment samples collected from 20 surface-water dams in southwestern Nigeria have been determined by low-level gamma-spectroscopy. The average concentration of 40K in each of the dams varied between 110.9 ± 11.9 Bq kg-1 and 1025.9 ± 36.8 Bq kg-1 with an overall mean (± SD) of 549.3 ± 247.6 Bq kg-1 while that of 238U varied from 17.1 ± 3.6 to 51.9 ± 8.7 Bq kg-1 with an overall mean (± SD) of 27.6 ± 8.5 Bq kg-1 and that of 232Th varied from 26.2 ± 3.6 Bq kg-1 to 130.1 ± 23.7 Bq kg-1 with overall mean (± SD) of 62.0 ± 26.1 Bq kg-1. The variability of the values shows the wide disparity in the measured activity concentrations. The mean radium equivalent of 158.9 Bq kg-1 was calculated for the sediments in the dams. No artificial gamma emitting radionuclide was detected in the samples.

Keywords

Activity concentrationsedimentsurface-water damradium equivalent activitysouthwest Nigeria
Type
Research Article
Information
Radioprotection , Volume 43 , Issue 4 , October 2008 , pp. 533 - 545
Copyright
© EDP Sciences, 2008

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