About the radioactivity of some agricultural products from areas near Crucea uranium mine

Abstract

Events like the nuclear accidents that occured at Cernobyl in Ukraine and Fukushima in Japan have raised public awareness to the many dangers of working with radioactive elements. When using nuclear energy it is well known that any controlable nuclear source can in certain circumstances become uncrontrollable. As a result the radiological monitoring of the enivironment has increased both in the vicinity of nuclear plants and of uranium mines. The aim of this paper is the study of local products sampled from areas near the Crucea uranium mine found in the county of Suceava. The results of our measurements show that the radioactive activity of mushrooms is significantly higher than the cosmic background showing that mushrooms have the potential of being used as bioindicators for radioactivity.