Geological significance of soil gas radon: A case study of Nurpur area, district Kangra, Himachal Pradesh, India
Introduction
The state of Himachal Pradesh (Fig. 1) lies in the north–west Himalayas with mountainous terrain between Ravi in the north–west and Tons-Yamuna in the south–west. Most of the tectonic (seismic) activity in the Himalayas region is confined to lesser and outer Himalayas, which comprise pre-tertiary and tertiary rock sequences. The Shivalik system runs parallel to the lesser Himalayas in the southern extremity and is succeeded by vast stretch of quaternary alluvium through a regional tectonic plane namely Himalyan Frontal Fault (HFF).
Geologically district Kangra lies between North latitudes and East longitudes. The elevation generally varies from 500 to 5500 m from mean sea level. Nurpur and its adjoining area in district Kangra lies between North latitudes and East longitudes (Fig. 2). It comprise dominantly of middle and upper Shivaliks, separated by a regional thrust. Towards the north the region is enclosed by thrust separating Shivaliks from lesser Himalayas. Towards the south the area is characterized by alluvium and other recent deposits. Apart from longitudinal thrust plane, the region is traversed by transverse lineaments or faults viz. Dehar lineament and Gaj lineament (Fig. 2). Intersection of these two fault systems have made the region tectonically interesting. Similar intersection pattern of longitudinal thrust planes and the transverse lineaments have been observed in the adjoining Dharamsala area of district Kangra (Dhar et al., 2002).
Radon is a daughter nuclide of radium , which in turn comes from the long lived antecedent, uranium . The short half-life of (3.82 days) limits its diffusion in soil, so that radon measured at the ground surface cannot be released from a deep origin, unless there exists a driving mechanism other than mere diffusion. Radon is a marker of convection process, fault interaction and of uranium, thorium mineral rocks (Quattrocchi et al., 2000). The movement of radon through rocks under the earth largely depends on lithology, compaction, porosity and fractural and tectonic features like faults, thrust, joints or fractures (Tanner, 1986; Gunderson et al., 1998; Choubey et al., 1997). The distribution of radon in soil gas has been employed in the monitoring of volcanic activities (Seidel et al., 1984, Baubron et al., 1991), the prediction of earthquakes (Hauksson and Goddard, 1981, Singh et al., 1991, Wattananikorn et al., 1998, Planinic et al., 2001) and the mapping of fault zones (Fytikas et al., 1999; Al-Tamini and Abumurad, 2001, Guerra and Lombardi, 2001, Attallah et al., 2001, Baubron et al., 2002, Ajayi and Adepelumi, 2002). The present study is aimed at determining a possible connection between eventual radon anomalies and active geological lineaments and faults.
Section snippets
Methodology
Using satellite data (1:50 000, Toposheets no. 43P/15, 43P/16, 52D/4, LISS-III) visual interpretation and ground truth, a tectonic lineament and fault map of the study area was generated (Fig. 2). The geology and geomorphology of the area related to this map is after Shah and Pal (1991). Interpretation of data reveal that the study area is dissected by numerous lineaments and faults of regional and local nature. Visual interpretation of the tectonic map reveals three zones of inferred tectonic
Results and discussion
Remote sensing data provides the synoptic coverage of any desired area and has been successfully used to recognize structures having tectonic significance. Lineament map of Nurpur area can be classified in three zones based on the trends revealed (Fig. 2). All the major lineaments and the curvilinears were delineated from the satellite imageries (LISS-III). Three lineaments trends filtered reveal: (1) trend parallel to the regional longitudinal structural plane between the middle and lower
Conclusions
The results of the present work led to the following conclusions:
- 1.
Three distinct zones of lineament trends are observed in the study area.
- 2.
Soil gas radon activity in the study area confirm with the inferred results of lineaments density or trend map.
- 3.
High values of soil gas radon along Dehar lineament are related to some geological anomalies (tectonically induced radon) rather than to increased uranium and radium contents.
- 4.
Transverse Dehar lineament in the study area is tectonically more active.
Acknowledgements
The lab facilities at Department of Physics, GNDU, Amritsar and Remote Sensing Lab, Shimla are thankfully acknowledged. Thanks are due to Mr. Santokh Singh, Technical Assistant for the help during the work.
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