Affiliations: Biren Roy Research Laboratory for Radioactivity and
Earthquake Studies School of Studies in Environmental Radiation and
Archaeological Sciences, Jadavpur University, Kolkata 700 032, India | Nuclear and Particle Physics Research Centre,
Department of Physics, Jadavpur University, Kolkata 700 032, India | Sitananda College, Nandigram, Purba Medinipur, West Bengal, India
Abstract: The Subarnarekha river is a major river rising from the Chota Nagpur
plateau of Jharkhand State, India. After passing through Jharkhand state, the
river enters the Indian state of West Bengal, Orissa and finally falls into the
Bay of Bengal. Jaduguda mine which is the foundation on which the Indian
nuclear fuel chain rests is situated at Jharkhand state near the R.
Subarnarekha course. In order to observe the contamination effect of Jaduguda
mine on the river, we have collected river water samples from nine different
locations along the path of the river and measured alpha activity in those
samples. High level of alpha radioactivity is found in all the samples even at
far sites from mine region and it is interestingly seen that alpha activity
decreases as we go near-to-far locations from the mine. Tube-well samples were
also collected from the same locations and in that case also similar trend was seen.
Keywords: R. Subarnarekha, Jaduguda mine, alpha activity, river and tube-well water
