Abstract
This work aims to evaluate the soil radon gas concentration levels at different depths in Wadi Nasieb area. The area under investigation is located about 40 km east of Abu Zeneima town in the southwestern part of Sinai Peninsula. It is bounded by Long. 33 degrees 22'/and 33 degrees 25'/E and Lat. 29 degrees 10' 30" and 29 degrees 05'/N, The radon gas concentration were measured using CR-39 etch track detectors in both summer and winter times at different depths (25, 50, 75 and 100 cm) covering several geological formation.
Twenty one stations were chosen to cover several geological formations in the studied area. According to the obtained data, these stations were classified to three main sets of stations (low, medium and high level stations). the obtained results were as follows : i) For low level zone the soil radon concentration ranges from 1.035 +/- 0.098 to 1.857 +/- 0.160 (KBq/m3) in summer and from 0.628 +/- 0.116 to 1.421 +/- 0.180 (K Bq/m3) in winter, ii) For the medium level zone, it ranges from 1.742 +/- 0.168 to 4.347 +/- 0.359 (KBq/m3) in summer and from 1.108 +/- 0.153 to 2.996 +/- 0.202 (K Bq/m3) in winter, iii) For high level zone, it range from 10.370 +/- 0.402 to 21.361 +/- 0.410 (K Bq/m3) in summer and 7.224 +/- 0.228 to 13.088 +/- 0.369 (K Bq/m3) in winter.
The highest values of soil radon concentration obtained are found in station (9) in both seasons at all depths. This may be related to the high uranium content for this geological formation. As expected, the data show that the values of radon gas and its progeny concentrations increases as depth increases. The concentration of radon at a depth of 100 cm is about twice higher than the value of radon concentration at a depth of 25 cm.