Abstract
The area around the Euganean Hills (North-East Italy) is concerned with thermal phenomena known and used for therapeutic purposes since ancient times. The thermal waters collected in this area have taken up a natural radionuclides content due to the leaching of hot and permeable deep rocks, with which they come into contact, before their rising to the surface. During the “maturation” process of the mud used for treatment purposes, the thermal waters make happen a complex series of biochemical changes and release a series of chemical species to the mud, resulting, in particular, in an enrichment phenomenon for some radionuclides. In this work, the first radiochemical analysis extended to all the Euganean Thermal District is reported. In particular, chemical analyses of mud, as well as radiochemical analyses of both mud and waters were performed; the enrichment of the radioisotopes in mud used for treatments was also documented. The results show that the 226 Ra content in mud, during the “maturation” process, presents an enrichment even of one order of magnitude with respect to the value found in the unprocessed mud. Furthermore, in the same thermal waters, high concentrations of “unsupported” 222 Rn have been found, which have shown to be not completely negligible both for people under treatment and particularly for spa workers.
Highlights
The Euganean Hills are located in the Venetian Plain, in isolated position with respect to other hills or mountains; their origin is pseudo-volcanic
The thermal waters collected in this area have taken up a natural radionuclides content due to the leaching of hot and permeable deep rocks, with which they come into contact, before their rising to the surface
The Euganean thermal water comes from the “Piccole Dolomiti” (High North of Vicenza district) where meteoric precipitations deeply seep into ground until they reach the deep pre-Permian basement, impermeable, where waters warm up
Summary
The Euganean Hills are located in the Venetian Plain, in isolated position with respect to other hills or mountains; their origin is pseudo-volcanic. The thermal phenomenon is merely generated by the geothermal gradient, totally independent from the original volcanic activity, which ended about 30 million years ago. The Euganean thermal water comes from the “Piccole Dolomiti” (High North of Vicenza district) where meteoric precipitations deeply seep into ground until they reach the deep pre-Permian basement, impermeable, where waters warm up. The region of water seepage was found to be the “Piccole Dolomiti” on the basis of the isotopic composition of Oxygen (16O/18O); the amount of 3H decay, with respect to its activity at the origin, shows that water could take not less than 50 years to run the entire path [1, 2]. The geographical distribution of the thermal springs and their field of temperature were recently revisited [3]
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