Abstract
Malkara coals are located in the Oligocene-aged Danişmen Formation in the Thrace Tertiary coal basin. The Danişmen Formation consists of limestone, sandstone, tuffite, siltstone, claystone and intercalated coal. Elemental and specific natural radionuclide concentrations of lignites collected from Tekirdağ–Malkara coalfield were determined, and the associated radiological risk was assessed. In order to examine the depth-dependent radionuclide concentration changes, samples were taken from top, middle and bottom parts of the boreholes. Gamma spectrometric measurements of radionuclide activities were performed with HPGe detector. The calculated mean 226Ra, 232Th and 40K concentrations were 27.0 ± 3.57, 18.9 ± 3.28 and 155 ± 36.1 Bq kg−1, and the measured U, Th, Pb and K concentrations were 4.04, 6.27, 10.6 ppm and 0.82%, respectively. Findings were comparable with the reported literature for Turkey and other countries from the world. The dose due to the radionuclide content of lignites was not very high to pose a serious health risk.
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Acknowledgements
The author thanks Prof. Dr. İsmail BOZTOSUN for providing gamma spectrums of samples and Mineral Research and Exploration Institute (Maden Tetkik ve Arama Genel Müdürlügü, MTA) for their contribution and assistance in sampling. This research was supported by Akdeniz University, Scientific Research Projects Coordination Unit (BAP: FDK-2016-2042).
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This research was supported by Akdeniz University, Scientific Research Projects Coordination Unit (BAP: FDK-2016-2042).
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C. Bertan GÜLLÜDAĞ, Ercüment AKSOY, Neslihan ÜNAL and Süleyman Fatih ÖZMEN contributed to conceptualization and performed writing—original draft preparation, and writing—review and editing; Süleyman Fatih ÖZMEN was involved in formal analysis and investigation; and C. Bertan GÜLLÜDAĞ helped in funding acquisition.
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Güllüdağ, C.B., Aksoy, E., Ünal, N. et al. Radioactivity concentrations and risk assessment of Tekirdağ lignites (case study of Malkara coalfield). Acta Geophys. 68, 1411–1420 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11600-020-00468-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11600-020-00468-3