Determination of uranium and thorium in Egyptian monazite by gamma-ray spectrometry

Radiological characterization of beach sediments along the Alexandria–Rosetta coasts of Egypt

“…The locations and areas of black sands that contain monazite minerals are of interest for researchers. This is because monazite sand is considered an important geological material [8] because it may contain 0.1-0.3% uranium and 5-7% thorium, which are the main elements used in nuclear power plants [9]. Around the world, several authors have been studying radionuclide concentrations in sand beaches in the Kerala and Tamil Nadu coastal regions of India [10], in Bangladesh [9] and in southwestern Australia [11].…”

Mechanisms of enrichment of natural radioactivity along the beaches of the Camargue, France

“…High concentrations of U and Th arise from heavy minerals such as monazite and zircon (Coelho et al, 2005;Hassan et al, 1997;Malanca et al, 1998;Alam et al, 1999). Those minerals induce significant increases of the radiation dose rate (Radhakrishna et al, 1993;Van Duong et al, 1996;Kannan et al, 2002;Mohanty et al, 2004;Freitas and Alencar, 2004;Alencar and Freitas, 2005).…”

Gamma dose rates and distribution of natural radionuclides in sand beaches—Ilha Grande, Southeastern Brazil

“…Some Brazilian beaches present high radiation due to the presence of monazite sand (B.A.S., 1997). Research in these places is of interest because monazite sand is considered an important geological material (Hassan et al, 1997), because it may contain 0.1-0.3% uranium and 5-7% thorium that are the main elements used in nuclear power plants (Alam et al, 1999). Around the world, several authors have been studying radionuclide concentrations in sand beaches in Kerala and Tamil Nadu coastal regions of India (Radhakrishna et al, 1993), in Bangladesh (Alam et al, 1999) and in the southwestern Australia (de Meijer et al, 2001).…”