Topographic View of the Distribution of Radionuclide Particles over an Abandoned Quarry Site

Soils and rocks of granite composition are known to contain significant amounts of terrestrial radionuclides of Uranium, Thorium and Potassium. These radionuclides emit radon, thoron and argon gas into the quarry pit and by their decay, gamma ray is obtained in the area. The aim of this study is to obtain the topographic distribution of radionuclide particles in an abandoned quarry pit as this will help to explain the distribution of the gamma ray levels at the various points within it. Measurement of the distribution of radionuclides in counts per second was carried out in the quarry pit at Supare, Ondo State, Nigeria, using a portable microprocessor based digital scaler/rate meter, model DSM-500. The result shows that the topography of the physical features of the pit base and of the radio-nuclide counts per second in the pit are similar when there is a negative temperature gradient above the pit base. In both cases, the radionuclide counts per second in the quarry depends on the height of the measuring spot above the sea level.