The occurrence of 226Ra and 228Ra in groundwaters of the Polish Sudety Mountains

Abstract

The paper presents preliminary measurement results of the concentrations of 226 Ra and 228 Ra isotopes in the groundwaters of the Polish part of the Sudety Mountains. The analysis of sampling results for water from 55 intakes showed that the average concentrations amount to 0.144 Bq/dm 3 for 226 Ra and 0.083 Bq/dm 3 for 228 Ra, while the extreme values reach 0.007 and 0.92 Bq/dm 3 for 226 Ra, and 0.004 and 0.4 Bq/dm 3 for 228 Ra. The activity ratio 228 Ra/ 226 Ra in the examined groundwaters ranges between 0.099 and 2.059. The result of the conducted research implies that the highest concentrations of 226 Ra and 228 Ra occur in the waters with the highest general mineralization (the highest values of total dissolved solids (TDS)).