Behavior of 210Po and 210Pb in high background areas of coastal Kerala on the south west coast of India

This paper deals with the distribution and behavior of 210Po and 210Pb in beach sand and surface soil samples from the Quilon district of Kerala. Beach sand and soil samples were collected and analyzed for 210Po and 210Pb radionuclides using standard radiochemical analytical techniques. Mean activities of 210Po and 210Pb were found to be maximum in the samples collected at 20 m away from waterline. Among the beach sand samples, the activities of radionuclide were found to be maximum for samples from most of the regions of Chavara and few regions of Neendakara. The activity of 210Po was found to vary from 2.4 to 20.5 Bq kg−1 with a mean value of 8.3 Bq kg−1 at the water line, 2.5-19.9 Bq kg−1 with a mean value of 10.2 Bq kg−1 at 20 m away from the waterline, and 2.1-6.7 Bq kg−1 with a mean value of 3.5 Bq kg−1 at 40 m away from waterline. The respective values found for 210Pb were from 1.2 to 48.2 Bq kg−1 with a mean value of 14.9, 11.3-34.2 Bq kg−1 with a mean value of 19.8 Bq kg−1 and 2.3 to 18.3 Bq kg−1 with a mean value of 8.7 Bq kg−1. The depth profile study indicated the mean activity of 210Po to decrease with depth for samples collected 20 m away from waterline whereas the activity slightly increases with depth 40 m away from sea. The activity concentration of 210Po and 210Pb in surface beach sand shows good correlation, with a correlation coefficient 0.81.