Environmental study of fall-out 239+240Pu in soil samples in Iran

The result of a general survey on the concentration of fall-out 239+240Pu in soil collected from several regions in Iran are presented. The samples represent mixed soil averaged over the depth of 0–50 mm. According to the results obtained by alpha spectrometry on 96 soil samples from 32 locations, the 239+240Pu concentrations vary in the range 80–360 mBq kg−1. Under normal operating conditions and present counting setup, the minimum detectable activity (MDA) was approximately 8 mBq kg−1 for soil samples