Spatial and temporal variations of radon concentration in soil air

Variation of 222Rn Activity Concentration in Soil Gas at a Site in Sapporo, Japan

“…It is clearly found from the figure that 222 Rn activity concentrations were consistently higher at point 1 (0.89-3.80 kBq m )3 ) than at point 2 (0.23-0.91 kBq m )3 ) through the observation period. The values obtained in this study were at least 10 times lower than those reported in the world (Bonotto & Andrews 1999;Jonsson et al 1999;Mose & Mushrush 1999;Miksova & Barnet 2002;Iakovleva & Ryzhakova 2003). This must be due to the underlying geology of the site as previously described in the Section Soil gas sampling and 222 Rn measurement.…”

“…However, it is generally accepted that soil radon increases with depth due to combined effects of density, porosity and 226 Ra activity changes with depth. In addition to the factors controlling the depth profile of radon concentration shown above, the atmospheric pressure is known to affect the activity at shallow depth (<70 cm) in soil (Iakovleva & Ryzhakova 2003). This may be a reason why similar pattern of the 222 Rn variability appeared at two points in Figure 3.…”

Report on Correlation between Radon Outgassing and Aftershocks Activity along the Bam Fault in Kerman Province of Iran

“…It has been proposed that radon concentration is sensitive to crustal stress/strain variations, and could reveal earthquake preparatory mechanisms [11]. The amplitude of the temporal variations of the soil gas radon concentration depends on the meteorological conditions [12][13][14][15][16], geological features in a given area, and distance from the epicenter of an earthquake [7,9]. Further studies are needed to differentiate the changes that are due to tectonic disturbances from other causes, and to determine the effect of the meteorological parameters, geological features and distance from the epicenter on the measured radon concentration.…”

A laboratory study on the temperature dependence of the radon concentration in coal

“…These may include the concentration of uranium and thorium in the materials, the Rn emanation power of the materials, physical properties of the materials such as diffusion coefficient, permeability and porosity, and environmental factors such as moisture content, ambient pressure and temperature (Cameron, 1987;Nazaroff, 1992;Sun and Furbish, 1995;Hutter, 1996;Iakovleva and Ryzhakova, 2003).…”