Determination of macroconstituents and trace elements in naturally occurring radioactive material in oil exploration waste products

Disequilibrium in the uranium and actinium series in oil scale samples

We have investigated the disequilibrium of the uranium and actinium series and have found both ²²⁶Ra (90,200 ± 4300 Bq/kg) and ²²⁸Ra have activity concentrations orders of magnitude higher that ²³⁸U (1.83 ± 0.36 Bq/kg) and ²³²Th (7.0 ± 0.4) which are at the head of the decay series. As well the activity concentration of ²¹⁰Pb (24,400 ± 1200 Bg/kg) was about 3.6 times less than ²²⁶Ra. Once an efficiency curve was constructed summing corrections for specific isotopes in the decay change also needed to be taken in consideration. Furthermore, self-attenuation of the photons especially the 46.5 keV belonging to ²¹⁰Pb was calculated to be 78% since the scale had elevated elemental concentrations of high-Z elements such as barium and strontium.