Assessment of radium and radon exhalation rate in soil and building material samples using LR-115 plastic track detectors.

Solid state nuclear track detectors (LR-115 TYPE-II) were used to determine the concentration of radium and radon exhalation rate in soil samples collected from the different areas of Dharamshala,Himachal Pradesh (India) and in building material samples :" viz. cement, bricks and white marble collected from different locations of India. The radium concentration for the soil samples and building materials variedfrom 16.22Bqkg-1 to 25.44Bqkg-1 and 32.33 Bqkg-1 to 52.26Bqkg-1 with an average value of 22.03 Bqkg-1 and 39.12 Bqkg-1 respectively. The calculated average values of radon exhalation rate in terms of mass (E.) and area (E.) for soil samples and building material samples are (8.59mBqkg-1h-1 and 310.6 mBqm-1h-1) and (15.26mBqkg-1h-1and 551.6 mBqm-2h-1) respectively.