Badanie wpływu zawartości minerałów ciężkich na naturalną promieniotwórczość skał miocenu zapadliska przedkarpackiego

Abstract

In the Miocene rocks of the Carpathian Foredeep, the occurrence of overestimating the measurements of natural radioactivity logs for mudstones was noticed. This phenomenon causes problems with recognition on the basis of natural radioactivity profiling of these rocks from claystones, characterized by inferior petrophysical parameters. In this study, another possible source of increased radioactivity of mudstone rocks, i.e. the content of heavy minerals that tend to accumulate radioactive elements - uranium and thorium - was investigated. Heavy minerals, belonging to the accessory minerals, such as zircon, apatite, monazite, rutile, garnet and titanite, are characterized by increased radioactivity due to substitutions of U and Th in the crystal lattice. Natural radioactivity of the test samples was measured using the gamma spectrometry method with the RT-50 device from the Georadis company. The heavy minerals were then removed from the rock samples using a heavy liquid, previously separating the samples into grain fractions to facilitate the separation of the heavy fraction. The individual grain fractions deprived of heavy minerals were put back together and the uranium, thorium (and potassium) content was re-measured. Microscopic observations were also made to qualitatively analyze the mineralogical structure of the separated heavy fraction. In the tested samples, among others: zircon, tourmaline, garnet, rutile, apatite, chlorite or titanite grains were identified. The results of the measurements of natural radioactivity, before and after the separation of heavy minerals, do not give a clear answer to the problem of excessive indications of the gamma logs. It is necessary to increase the number of analyzed samples. The trend of decreasing amounts of U and Th in the samples from which the heavy fraction was isolated was observed. However, changes in radioactivity are so small that they do not allow to draw final conclusions. Additional analyzes are needed to assess the impact of other sources of uranium and thorium in analyzed rocks, such as the content of organic matter or Th content in clays.