Measurements of Natural Gamma Radiations and Effects of Physico-Chemical Properties in Soils of Yelagiri Hills, Tamilnadu India with Statistical Approach

Human beings have always been exposed to natural radiations arising from within and outside the earth. In the present study the concentration of natural radio-nuclides U-238, Th-232 and K-40 and gamma radiation dose rate in soils of Yelagiri hills, Tamilnadu was determined by gamma ray spectrometry. The determined average absorbed dose rate value is 88.64 nGy h(-1) which is slightly greater than the world average value of 84 nGy h(-1) The physico-chemical properties such as PH, soil texture, electrical conductivity, bulk density, parasite density and color of the soils was determined to assess the soil quality. The obtained radiological and physico-chemical data were treated by multivariate statistical techniques such as Pearson correlation and cluster analysis to determine the interrelation between the natural radio-nuclides and physico-chemical properties. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license.