Re: Gamma spec. of natural soil

[Franz Schoenhofer <schoenho@via.at>]

At 18:53 17.04.2000 -0500, you wrote:
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>To soil samplers and analyzers:
>
>I took natural soil samples from the depths of 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10 feet
from
>one location. There were no Cs-137 peaks from the samples taken at 4 feet and
>deeper. Is this normal? This area is dry and average rainfall is less than 10
>inches per year (I think). I used Genie2K + extended range HPGe for this
>analysis. Thank you. M. Jo

Dear collegue,

You do not mention, where you have taken these samples. Further you do not
mention what the characteristics of the soil involved are. 

After the Chernobyl accident I was forced to pay a lot of attention to
questions like Cs-137 migration. To make thousands of studies short: "it
depends". Radiocesium is usually adsorbed in the uppermost layers of soil,
depending to some extent on the characteristics of the soil. The uppermost
layers are a few centimeters (half inches....), whatever the soil may be. 

A terrible lot of data on soil profiles are available in the open
literature, which span the time from nuclear weapons fallout to nuclear
test sites and especially the Chernobyl impact. 

If you have some specific questions, which are not exclusively related to
curiosity, you are welcome to contact me privately and I will do my best to
get the informations you need.

Nevertheless I would like to comment, that whatever detector you use,
whatever MCA you use, whatever software you use - the result  m u s t  be
the same. It is unacceptable that activity concentrations would depend on
the instruments, the sample preparation methods and the software used.


Best regards,

Franz




Franz Schoenhofer
Habicherg. 31/7
A-1160 Vienna
Austria
Tel.: +43-1-495 53 08
Fax.: same number
mobile phone: +43-664-338 0 333
e-mail: schoenho@via.at


Office:
Hofrat Dr. Franz Schoenhofer
Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water Management
Radiation Protection Department (BMLUW I/8 U)
Radetzkystr. 2
A-1031 Vienna
AUSTRIA

phone: -43-1-71172-4458
fax: -43-1-7122331

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