Dear Colleagues,
the "2nd International Workshop on the European Atlas of Natural Radiation, IWEANR 2017" will be held in Verbania, Italy from 6 to 9 November 2017.
Here is the First Circular:
https://remon.jrc.ec.europa.eu/About/News/2017/11/06/2nd-International-Workshop-on-the-European-Atlas-of-Natural-Radiation
The Second Circular will be published in few days.
At IWEANR 2017 we will convene a Special Session entitled "Radon & Geology".
Below you can find more information about the topics that we would like to cover during the session.
Natural radon exhalation in confined environments exposes population to health risk. Potential radon hazard over a given territory depends on the geological features determining radon production, mobilization and exhalation.
This Special Session will focus on three main aspects.
1) Influence of tectonics and near surface stratigraphy of rocks and soils on radon emission. Tectonics, rock fracturing, karstification, primary and secondary permeability, particle grain size of soils and alluvial sediments, contact geometry between materials having different permeability can generate, promote or prevent radon flux towards the surface.
JRC is developing the European Atlas of Natural Radiation with maps based on U, Th, K in bedrocks and in soils. A reliable assessment of the radon hazard at a scale of the anthropic activities and settlements also requires knowledge of mechanisms and factors controlling mobilization and concentration of radon. Indeed, high radon concentrations may be found even in areas with lithologies having low uranium and thorium content, such as in cataclastic zones related to active faults, where dissolved gases originated at depth may find their way towards the surface. These factors may therefore cause strong lateral variations of radon emission at small scale (tens to hundreds of meters), making average Geological Radon Potential (GRP) estimates over wide areas difficult to be used in town planning.
2) Classification of geological features. Besides a correct identification and classification of outcropping rocks and soils, provided in geological maps at different scales, optimal classification of geological factors and parametrization of their effect in modulating radon emission may be included in the RP mapping improving its applicability in anthropic activities and settlements. This optimal classification should be as simple as possible to allow a wider application but strictly constrained by analytical data.
3) Representativeness and repeatability of soil Rn measurements. The classical definition of the Radon Potential (RP) is based on soil radon measurements and permeability. Repeatability and representativeness of such soil radon measurements are therefore essential for the reliability of the RP estimates. This includes the comparison among the different portable devices, measuring procedures, the influence of meteorological conditions, variations of the water table depth in unconfined aquifer, presence of organic matter in soil, etc.
The session aims at gathering radon researchers from different disciplines working on the relationship between radon emission and geology, developing and implementing instruments and measuring methods, dealing with geostatistics and areal radon distribution.
Through this scientific debate, we expect to increase awareness of the importance of all these different approaches to the radon hazard assessment and to encourage new interdisciplinary interactions and international collaborations.
We are pleased to invite you to submit your contribution to the Special Session "Radon and Geology".
The deadline for abstract submission is 30 July 2017.
The abstracts should be submitted as e-mail attachments and sent to:
JRC-IWEANR2017@ec.europa.eu and to each of the conveners.
We look forward to meeting you in Verbania.
Best regards
Raffaele Sassi (Padova University) (raffaele.sassi@unipd.it)
Claudio Mazzoli (Padova University) (claudio.mazzoli@unipd.it)
Paola Tuccimei (Roma3 University) (paola.tuccimei@uniroma3.it)
Giancarlo Ciotoli (IGAG-CNR) (giancarlo.ciotoli@igag.cnr.it)