Occupational exposures during the u-exploration activities at Seila Area, South Eastern Desert, Egypt

Abstract EN

Twenty trenches distributed over a shear zone at Seila area, South Eastern Desert of Egypt were chosen to study the occupational exposures during the U-exploration activities in these trenches.

The average value of the activity concentration of 238U, 232Th and 40K in the studied granites are 866, 57 and 1380 Bq.kg-1 respectively.

These values are higher than the worldwide average of 33, 45 and 412 Bq/kg.

According to these activity concentrations, trenches are divided into the non-regulated and regulated categories.

The average value of the annual effective dose due to the terrestrial radionuclides is 0.306 mSv for the non-regulated trenches and 0.958 mSv for the regulated trenches corresponding to the absorbed dose rate 219 nGy.h-1 for the non-regulated trenches and 684 nGy.h-1 for the regulated trenches.

The average measured annual effective dose for non-regulated and regulated trenches is 0.81 and 1.42 mSv respectively.

This difference is ascribed to the geometry of the studied trenches.

However, the total annual effective dose in the non-regulated and the regulated trenches is lower than the recommended value of 20 mSv.