Natural Radionuclide Analysis in Chattrapur Area of Southeastern Coastal Area of Odisha, India

The energy released in a spontaneous decay process of naturalradionuclides is the main source of the total radiation dose to humanbeings. Natural radionuclides are widely distributed in soil, rocks, air,and groundwater. In present investigation, the analysis of terrestrialradionuclides such as 226Ra, 232Th, and 40K in soil and sand of Chattarpurarea of southeastern coast of Odisha has been carried out using NaI(Tl)gamma ray detector. The higher activity concentrations of naturallyoccurring radionuclides have been reported from the study area. Thegamma radiationdose originating from the terrestrial radionuclides wasfound to vary from 95 to 1813 nGy/h with an average of 700 nGy/h. Thisstudy is important to generate a baseline data of radiation exposure in thearea. Health hazard effects due to natural radiation exposure arediscussed in details