Determination of levels of naturally occurring radioactive materials in environmental samples in the State of Kuwait by high-resolution γ-ray spectrometry.

A passively shielded, low-background hyper-pure germanium detector system was used to analyze and determine the radioactivity levels and content of soil samples taken from across the State of Kuwait. Samples were collected from 180 separate locations using a grid pattern with a 10km grid spacing with the result of creating a surface radiological map of the State of Kuwait. It was found that naturally occurring radioactive materials, 238U, 232Th and 40K, had average concentrations of 18.5±4.3, 17.1±4.1 and 410 ±110 Bq/kg respectively. Artificially created radionuclides were not found or were below the minimum level of detection. The Radium Equivalent Activity was determined to be 26.1±2.9 . Analysis was also carried out on isotopic abundances of uranium to determine any locations for evidence of enriched or depleted uranium deposits and/or elevated levels of 226Ra arising from fractionation effects. Typical elemental concentrations of uranium, uhorium and potassium in the samples across Kuwait were found to lie in the range 0.63±0.01 to 2.39±0.04 ppm, 1.34±0.03 to 6.70±0.11 ppm and 0.40±0.03 to 2.53±0.19 ppm respectively. Correlations between uranium, thorium and potassium abundances were measured, with clear correlations between the measured uranium and thorium elemental abundances