Characterization of uranium contamination in surface soils

Traditional means of obtaining radionuclide concentrations in soils over large areas are often time-consuming, cumbersome, expensive, and potentially non-representative. In an attempt to develop improved systems and new methodologies for the rapid and economical characterization of large-scale uranium contamination, two disparate monitoring technologies were compared at a contaminated site within the Fernald facility near Cincinnati, Ohio, USA. The results of this preliminary study suggest that uncollimated in-situ γ spectrometry and high-energy β-scintillation sensing may represent viable alternatives to, and in many cases could mitigate the need for, the collection of myriad soil samples and subsequent laboratory analyses when characterizing large contaminated sites.