Evaluation of natural radioactivity and radiological hazards in basement rocks from Gabel Abu El-Hassan in the North Eastern Desert of Egypt by multivariate statistical approach with remote sensing data

• Published in: Radiation detection technology and methods Vol. 5; no. 1; pp. 15 - 26
• Main Authors: El-Taher, Atef, Kamel, Mostafa, Tolba, Abdellah, Salaheldin, Ghada
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Singapore Springer Singapore 01-03-2021
• Subjects: Beam Physics; Hadrons; Heavy Ions; Nuclear Energy; Nuclear Physics; Original Paper; Particle Acceleration and Detection; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Natural radioactivity; Gabel Abu El-Hassan; Radiological hazards; Remote sensing; Egypt
• ISSN: 2509-9930; 2509-9949
• DOI: 10.1007/s41605-020-00213-w

Purpose
The present work deals with the natural radioactivity levels of basement rocks from Gabel Abu El-Hassan in the North Eastern Desert of Egypt.
Methods
The activity concentrations of
226
Ra,
232
Th and
40
K in rock samples were measured using a gamma-ray spectrometry with an HPGe detector. Landsat Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) data were processed and interpreted to create rock forming radioactive map.
Results and conclusion
The activity concentrations of
226
Ra,
232
Th and
40
K varied from 28.2 ± 9.4 to 259.6 ± 38.6 Bq/kg, 37.9 ± 9.9 to 297.4 ± 54.6 Bq/kg and 487.0 ± 73.4 to 5514.6 ± 786.0 Bq/kg, respectively. The radiological hazard indices (gamma index), the annual effective dose rate and excess life-time cancer risk were estimated to assess the radiological hazards due to the use of rock samples as building material. Remote sensing data were also used to integrate between radioactive analysis and Landsat-7 (ETM+) data processing to detect radioactive anomalies and to identify the uraniferous alteration zones in Abu El-Hassan area.