Utilization of airborne gamma ray spectrometric data for geological mapping, radioactive mineral exploration and environmental monitoring of southeastern Aswan city, South Eastern Desert, Egypt

The present work utilizes airborne gamma ray spectrometric data in a trial to refine surface geology of igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks, detect any radioactive mineralization and monitor environment at southeastern Aswan city, South Eastern Desert, Egypt. This area is mainly covered with igneous rocks (younger granites, older granites, metasediments, metavolcanics, metagabbro, Tertiary basalt and ring complex), metamorphic rocks as well as sedimentary rocks (Um Barmil Formation, Timsah Formation, Abu Aggag Formation and wadi sediments). Airborne gamma ray spectrometry can be very helpful in mapping surface geology. This provides estimates of the apparent surface concentrations of the most common naturally occurring radioactive elements, such as potassium (K), equivalent uranium (eU) and equivalent thorium (eTh). This is based on the assumption that, the absolute and relative concentrations of these radioelements vary measurably and significantly with lithology. The composite image technique is used to display simultaneously three parameters of the three radioelement concentrations and their three binary ratios on one image. The technique offers much in terms of lithological discrimination, based on colour differences and showed efficiency in defining areas, where different lithofacies occur within areas mapped as one continuous lithology. The integration between surface geological information and geophysical data led to detailing the surface geology and the contacts between different rock units. Significant locations or favourable areas for uranium exploration are defined, where the measurements exceed (X + 2S), taking X as the arithmetic mean of eU, eU/eTh and eU/K measurements and S as the standard deviation corresponding to each variables. The study area shows the presence of four relatively high uraniferous zones. These zones cannot be ignored and need further ground follow-up. In addition, the trend analysis based on the three radioelement maps and the published geological map shows that, most of the well-developed structural lineaments have NW, NE and ENE trends. Moreover, the average radiation dose rates in the study area, which range from 0.57 to 1.3 mSv yr(-1) average, are calculated from the exposure rate for each rock unit. The dose rate levels still remain in the safe side to individuals and less than the maximum permissible from the natural gamma radiation sources, except younger granites and ring complex.