The influence of different types of granite on indoor radon concentrations of dwellings in the South African West Coast Peninsula

Abstract

Granite commonly contains high concentrations of uranium, with subsequent high exhalation of radon gas. The geology of the West Coast Peninsula of South Africa is dominated by granite. No measurements of radon gas has, however, been undertaken in, or near the towns of the peninsula and a recent article predicted potentially high indoor radon concentrations in the town of Saldanha. This article sets out to validate the predicted results by measuring the indoor radon concentration for the two largest settlements on the West Coast Peninsula: Vredenburg and Saldanha. Measurements were conducted during the summer months with houses typically being more open due to the warm weather. The data was found to exhibit lognormal behavior, with the I-type granite formation of Vredenburg yielding a higher indoor radon concentration than the ignimbrite formation of Saldanha. The average indoor radon concentration of Vredenburg was 34% higher than that of Saldanha, with 58.7 Bq/m 3 and 38.6 Bq/m 3 respectively.

Radon Dynamics and Effective Dose Estimation in a Touristic Volcanic Cave: La Cueva del Viento, Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain)

“…A frequency and quantile-quantile analysis (Figure SM1 in Supporting Information S1) showed that our data do not follow a normal distribution. Kolmogorov-Smirnov test with Lilliefors corrections of the radon concentration (p-value < 0.05) and the log-transformed data (p-value = 0.06) confirmed that our data were well-defined by a log-normal distribution, which is very common in indoor radon studies and in other geochemical data (Cinelli et al, 2015;Le Roux et al, 2019). When analyzing the data distribution, we found that 23 detectors (ca.…”

The Anthropogenic Impact on Indoor Radon Concentrations for Secunda, Mpumalanga Province, South Africa

“…As predicted, based on the estimation that coal in the Mpumalanga region consists of 25.27% ash, the measured uranium concentration of the fine ash is approximately four times that of the original coal. According to geological data (http://georoc.mpch-mainz.gwdg.de/georoc/entry.html), the average uranium concentration of granite in South Africa is 7.1 mg kg −1 , which was found to cause elevated radon levels indoors (le Roux et al 2019). The coal found in this region thus has a high radiation content, which could lead to radioactive fallout when pulverized and combusted, leading to elevated radon levels in homes.…”

Assessment of Radon and Naturally Occurring Radionuclides in the Vredefort Meteorite Crater in South Africa

“…A volume of 100 cm 3 was used, and the masses of the samples varied between 0.078 kg and 0.147 kg. As laboratory standards for the efficiency and energy calibrations, three IAEA-approved reference materials containing 40 K, 238 U, and 232 Th nuclides were utilized. The laboratory analyses were conducted according to the procedure recommended by Bezuidenhout [27].…”

“…Gamma-ray spectroscopy was performed, and since 238 U and 232 Th primarily emit alpha particles in their initial decay processes, this process had to consider the daughter nuclides from the decay. Also included in the study was 40 K, due to its abundance in nature, even though it does not contribute towards the accumulation of radon through its decay.…”