Paper
Investigation of Vertical Distribution of Soil Elements at Central Part of Bangladesh Using Neutron Activation Analysis
- Authors:
- Mohammed Jamal Uddin; Md. Saifur Rahman; Syed Mohammod Hossain
- Abstract
- Soil is a mixture of minerals, plant and animal materials formed during a long process that may take thousands of years. The trace elements in soil are very important in aspects of both soil and environmental quality as well as the geological purposes. The soil and sediments have been extracted in the undisturbed state from Singair Upazila, Manikgonj district, Bangladesh; each of them extending from 1.5 feet (0.46m) up to about 27 feet (8.23m) of depth. The drilling cores were executed by wash borings method which were mainly composed of silty clay, very fine silty sand, fine to very fine sand, fine to medium sand and fine sand with mica layers at different depths. Nuclear reactor based Instrumental Neutron Activation Analysis (INAA) method has been used for analysis of concentrations of various trace elements in subsurface soil and sediments at various depths. Although the mean, median and standard deviation of trace elements concentration from the two study sites soil samples demonstrate same distribution characteristics of soil, but the analytical results of selected borehole sediment samples of contaminated areas shows that the vertical distributions of arsenic and iron do not follow any regular or particular pattern. They are randomly distributed over all layers and the correlations coefficients [R2 =0.6568 (n=16), R2=0.4668 (n=18)] between total arsenic and iron in the core sediments are significant. Furthermore, a highly significant correlation was observed between Fe-Mn, Cr-Fe, Cr-Sc and Sc-Fe which indicates that they are closely associated with each other and variation in concentrations of one can influence the concentration of others.
- Keywords
- Investigation; Trace Elements; Neutron Activation Analysis; Correlation Analysis
- StartPage
- 5
- EndPage
- 13
- Doi