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Dependence of radon emanation of soil on lithology

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Abstract

In soil samples collected from 58 points of 7 different lithological units that appear most often in Slovenia, emanation fraction of 222Rn and porosity have been determined. Emanation fraction ranged from 0.010 to 0.547 and varied substantially among lithological units, as well as within the same lithological unit. The highest average value was found in soil over sea and lake deposits (0.340) and the lowest, over metamorphic rocks (0.029). Based on the data measured, radon concentration in soil gas was calculated and compared with the values obtained previously at the same points by exposing solid state nuclear track detectors.

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Acknowledgments

The study was financed by the Slovenian Research Agency under the programme contract no. P1-0143, the Slovenia-Hungary cooperation in science and technology under the contract no. BI-HU/08-016, the Slovenian Nuclear Safety Administration under the project no. 2513-06-397005, and the Hungarian State and the European Union projects Grant No. TÁMOP-4.2.2.A-11/1/KONV-2012-0071. The authors thank undergraduate students of the Department of Geology at the Faculty of Natural Science and Engineering, University of Ljubljana for their excellently executed field work, and land owners who kindly permitted us to carry out sampling on their land.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Radiochemistry and Radioecology, University of Pannonia, Egyetem Str. 10, Veszprém, Hungary

    Richárd Kardos, Jácint Jónás & Tibor Kovács

  2. Jožef Stefan Institute, P.O. Box 3000, 1001, Ljubljana, Slovenia

    Asta Gregorič & Janja Vaupotič

  3. Ningyo-toge Environmental Engineering Center, Japan Atomic Energy Agency, 1550 Kamisaibara, Kagamino-cho, Tomata-gun, Okayama, 708-0698, Japan

    Yuu Ishimori

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  1. Richárd Kardos
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  2. Asta Gregorič
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  3. Jácint Jónás
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  4. Janja Vaupotič
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  5. Tibor Kovács
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  6. Yuu Ishimori
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Correspondence to Asta Gregorič.

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Kardos, R., Gregorič, A., Jónás, J. et al. Dependence of radon emanation of soil on lithology. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 304, 1321–1327 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10967-015-3954-3

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