Assessment of natural radioactivity levels in tailings from Lurambi rosterman gold mine, Kakamega county Kenya.

Abstract

Thirty samples were analyzed in the assessment of the activity concentration levels associated with naturally occurring radionuclides materials from Rosterman gold mine. Activity concentration with regard to gamma ray spectrometric analysis was 245±12.39 Bqkg-1; 110±5.15Bqkg-1 and84±4.23Bqkg-1 for 40K, 232Th and 238Urespectively. Averagely, the absorbed dose rate was53.65±6.2 nGy-1, the annual effective dose of 0.4±0.02𝑚𝑚𝑆𝑆𝑣𝑣𝑦𝑦−1 for indoor and 0.3±0.01𝑚𝑚𝑆𝑆𝑣𝑣𝑦𝑦−1 for outdoor were reported. The radiological parameters were averagely valued as 0.7±0.03 𝑚𝑚𝑆𝑆𝑣𝑣𝑦𝑦−1 , 0.8±0.04 𝑚𝑚𝑆𝑆𝑣𝑣𝑦𝑦−1 and 278±13.08 Bq/Kg for internal hazard index, external hazard index and radium equivalent respectively. All the radiological parameters were within the recommended permissible values. This therefore points out that gold mining at Rosterman has no significant radiological health implication on the miners and population around.