Radioactivity Levels of Some Natural Stones in Burdur, Turkey

Abstract

Radionuclides such as uranium, thorium and potassium have existed in the environment since the world's existence. It is important to know the distribution of these radionuclides in terms of human health and environmental protection. For this reason, the measurements of these natural radionuclides were made for the 6 stone samples extracted in the province of Burdur. To measure the natural activity concentrations of potassium-40, radium-226 and thorium-232 radionuclides, a gamma spectrometry method was used with a NaI (T1) detector which is a multichannel analytical detector in the gamma spectrometer laboratory of Suleyman Demirel University. The average activity concentrations of 40K, 226Ra and 232Th were 290.53 Bq/kg, 35.49 Bq/kg and 42.88 Bq/kg, respectively. To evaluate the radiological hazard of natural radioactivity to humans and the environment, radium equivalent activity, absorbed dose ratio, annual effective dose ratio, internal and external hazard indices were calculated. These calculated values were found to be suitable with the standard limit values.