Investigation of relative abundance of radioelement concentration over a portion along Birnin Yauri, Northwestern Nigeria

Abstract

The radiometric method involves the measurement of naturally occurring radioactive materials emitting the ionization radiation (α, β, from rocks). In the field, the gamma rays and their adequate energies are detected by a spectrometer coupled with the scintillation detector. Three (3) high resolution airborne radiometric data obtained from the Nigerian geological survey agency (NGSA) were used to obtain the concentration of Potassium (K), Uranium (U) and Thorium (Th) respectively in the study area. The gridded data were fed into Oasis montaj software for appropriate filtering, in other to produce solutions for radioelement concentration across the area under study, thereafter producing shaded count maps as well as ternary maps. The result of the analysis revealed that potassium concentration is between 0.090 to 2.455% with an average of 2.365%. The thorium concentration values ranged from -0.539 to 15.221 ppm with an average of 7.341 ppm. The uranium concentration revealed values from -0.402ppm to 3.902ppm with an average of 1.75ppm. The ternary map of the radiometric data showed a red/cyan colour grid depicting potassium which is more pronounced across the area, followed by the uranium content(blue) covering an appreciable portion across with only but a few (green) coloured shaded regions depicting thorium. The results obtained have shown that the area has substantial amount of radioelement concentration, with potassium being the most abundant covering the central and western half of the area while the uranium content is more abundant towards the mid-western half and eastern parts of the area. The thorium content is minimal across the region.