The Slanic-Prahova (ROMANIA) underground low-background radiation laboratory

Radiometric, SEM and XRD investigation of the Chituc black sands, southern Danube Delta, Romania

“…The marks on the first column show the corresponding location of the map reproduced in Fig. 1 Radiometric Laboratory (GERRL) and in the Ultra-low Radiation Background Underground Laboratory (microBq) located in the Slanic-Prahova Unirea salt mine (Margineanu et al, 2008). In Table 2 we have presented the gamma lines which we have used for this study.…”

LAFARA: a new underground laboratory in the French Pyrénées for ultra low-level gamma-ray spectrometry

“…The use of low background gamma-ray spectrometry has increased in the past 20 years (Reyss et al, 1995;Heusser, 1996;Arpesella, 1996;Niese et al, 1998;Neumaier et al, 2000;Hult et al, 2000;Arnold et al, 2002;Schwaiger et al, 2002;Hult et al, 2004;Margineanu et al, 2008;Maneschg et al, 2008;Köhler et al, 2009). The detection of low radioactivity levels is indeed needed in various fields, including environmental sciences, fundamental physics, control of drinking water and food, surveillance of nuclear activity etc.…”

“…The number of underground laboratories has increased in the past 20 years (Laubenstein et al, 2004;Margineanu et al, 2008;Köhler et al, 2009). A network of European underground laboratories (CELLAR, for Collaboration of European Low-level underground LAboratoRies) exists since year 2000 and now groups 12 laboratories together.…”

Epithermal neutrons activation analysis, radiochemical and radiometric investigations of evaporitic deposits of Slanic-Prahova (Romania) salt mine

“…Romania is rich in natural deposits of salts, some forming massive salt domes, resulting from pressure that pushes the salt up through the rocks from great depths. Among these domes, mainly encountered in the sub-Carpathian region, the former Unirea salt mine in Slanic-Prahova city, 100 km North of Bucharest was chosen in 2006 for construction of the Underground Low Background Radiation Laboratory (LRBL) [12]. Among other factors such as mine volume, mine depth or distance from Bucharest, our decision was also influenced by existing data showing that the high purity salt (halite) deposit contains about 0.5-2% of mineral impurities (clays, quartz, feldspars, carbonates etc.)…”