Suitable gamma energy for gamma-spectrometric determination of 238U in surface soil samples of a high rainfall area in India

The paper presents a systematic study on suitability of various gamma lines for monitoring of 238U activity in soil samples around a uranium mineralized zone of Kylleng Pyndengsohiong Mawthabah (Domiasiat), Meghalaya in India. The area lies in a plateau region which recieves the highest average annual rainfall (12,000 mm) in the world. The geochemical behaviour of the uranium and its daughter products at such wet climatic conditions imposes restrictions to assess 238U through gamma lines of radon decay products. Soil samples were collected from nine locations around the uranium mineralization zone for analysis. The ratio of the concentration of uranium obtained from gamma energies of radium daughter products to the 63.29 keV of 234Th was found to vary from 1.01 to 2.07, which indicates a pronounced disequilibrium between uranium and radium daughters. The results obtained from various gamma energies were validated from the data generated by Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA) technique. The 238U activities from the two analytical methods show a well fitted regression line with correlation coefficient 0.99 which validates the reliability of 63.29 keV energy for estimation of uranium in such conditions.