Title: External and internal radiation doses due to alpha activity in Tafila district, Jordan

Authors: Abdul-Wali Ajlouni; Mahmoud K. Kullab; Kholoud M. Kharisat

Addresses: Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Amman, Jordan. ' Department of Physics, Yarmouk University, Irbid, Jordan. ' Department of Physics, Yarmouk University, Irbid, Jordan

Abstract: Tafila district of Jordan is unique in the presence of phosphate mines and hot spa which are the major sources of natural radioactivity. Natural radionuclides transfer from soil to vegetables grown in the region, and become a part of people's food. In this study, 16 soil and vegetable samples from Tafila district were collected from eight locations. External absorbed dose rates were calculated to be in the range of 11.75-217.08 nGy/h, with an overall mean value of 105.4 nGy/h. This value is higher than the corresponding population-weighted (world averaged) value of 60 nGy/h. The annual effective dose was found to vary from 27.44 μSv/y to more than 500 μSv/y with an average of 246.2 μSv/y, which is higher than the international ranges. The internal effective dose due to 238U, 234U and 235U for fresh weights of vegetables were found to be in the range from 7.65 ×; 10−4 µSv/y to 3.16 × 10−2 µSv/y for 238U, 9.31 × 10−4 µSv/y to 3.37 × 10−2 µSv/y for 234U and 1.2 × 10−4 µSv/y to 1.55 × 10−3 µSv/y for 235U.

Keywords: soil; vegetables; alpha spectrometry; environmental radioactivity; Tafila district; effective dose; internal dose; Jordan; low radiation; phosphate mines; hot spas; natural radioactivity; absorbed dose.

DOI: 10.1504/IJLR.2011.047187

International Journal of Low Radiation, 2011 Vol.8 No.5/6, pp.355 - 362

Published online: 07 Feb 2015 *

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