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Determination of uranium, thorium and potassium contents in rock and soil samples using low‐energy gamma ray spectrometry
Author(s) -
Reddy A. Subjender,
Rao N. Venkat
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
terra nova
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.353
H-Index - 89
eISSN - 1365-3121
pISSN - 0954-4879
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-3121.1995.tb00801.x
Subject(s) - thorium , uranium , potassium , gamma ray , gamma ray spectrometry , mass spectrometry , soil test , detection limit , sensitivity (control systems) , radiochemistry , analytical chemistry (journal) , low energy , energy (signal processing) , mineralogy , geology , materials science , soil water , chemistry , nuclear physics , physics , soil science , atomic physics , chromatography , electronic engineering , engineering , metallurgy , quantum mechanics
A low‐energy gamma ray spectrometric set‐up for determination of uranium, thorium and potassium in rock and soil samples is described. The procedure described exploits the fact that a large proportion of gamma quanta produced in the Th and U decay series have energies of less than 1 MeV. The instrumental parameters such as sensitivity and detection limits for the low‐energy region have been studied. The measuring conditions were optimized by suitably minimizing the background and by increasing the overall sensitivity with the help of proper geometry of measurement and sample parameters. High sensitivity and low detection limits for U and Th can be achieved using low‐energy gamma ray spectrometry. The method provides a rapid analysis with a counting time of the order of a few minutes for each sample.