Exploring atmospheric radon with airborne gamma-ray spectroscopy

Abstract

${}^{222}$Rn is a noble radioactive gas produced along the ${}^{238}$U decay chain, which is present in the majority of soils and rocks. As ${}^{222}$Rn is the most relevant source of natural background radiation, understanding its distribution in the environment is of great concern for investigating the health impacts of low-level radioactivity and for supporting regulation of human exposure to ionizing radiation in modern society. At the same time, ${}^{222}$Rn is a widespread atmospheric tracer whose spatial distribution is generally used as a proxy for climate and pollution studies. Airborne gamma-ray spectroscopy (AGRS) always treated ${}^{222}$Rn as a source of background since it affects the indirect estimate of equivalent ${}^{238}$U concentration. In this work the AGRS method is used for the first time for quantifying the presence of ${}^{222}$Rn in the atmosphere and assessing its vertical profile. High statistics radiometric data acquired during an offshore survey are fitted as a superposition of a constant component due to the experimental setup background radioactivity plus a height dependent contribution due to cosmic radiation and atmospheric ${}^{222}$Rn. The refined statistical analysis provides not only a conclusive evidence of AGRS ${}^{222}$Rn detection but also a (0.96 $\pm$ 0.07) Bq/m${}^3$ ${}^{222}$Rn concentration and a (1318 $\pm$ 22) m atmospheric layer depth fully compatible with literature data.

arXiv comment17 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables

References in corpus (3)

• Accuracy of Flight Altitude Measured with Low-Cost GNSS, Radar and Barometer Sensors: Implications for Airborne Radiometric Surveys
• A multivariate spatial interpolation of airborne γ-ray data using the geological constraints
• Airborne gamma-ray spectroscopy for modeling cosmic radiation and effective dose in the lower atmosphere

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Accuracy of Flight Altitude Measured with Low-Cost GNSS, Radar and Barometer Sensors: Implications for Airborne Radiometric Surveys
• Radon Concentration Potential in Bibala Municipality Water: Consequences for Public Consumption
• Airborne gamma-ray spectroscopy for modeling cosmic radiation and effective dose in the lower atmosphere
• Airborne Radiometric Surveys and Machine Learning Algorithms for Revealing Soil Texture
• Causes of the Diurnal Variation observed in $\gamma$-ray Spectrum using NaI (Tl) Detector
• Full-spectrum modeling of mobile gamma-ray spectrometry systems in scattering media
• Goupil: A Monte Carlo engine for the backward transport of low-energy gamma-rays