The occurrence of 226Ra and 228Ra in groundwaters of the Polish Sudety Mountains

The paper presents preliminary measurement results of the concentrations of 226Ra and 228Ra isotopes in the groundwaters of the Polish part of the Sudety Mountains. The analysis of sampling results for water from 55 intakes showed that the average concentrations amount to 0.144 Bq/dm3 for 226Ra and 0.083 Bq/dm3 for 228Ra, while the extreme values reach 0.007 and 0.92 Bq/dm3 for 226Ra, and 0.004 and 0.4 Bq/dm3 for 228Ra. The activity ratio 228Ra/226Ra in the examined groundwaters ranges between 0.099 and 2.059. The result of the conducted research implies that the highest concentrations of 226Ra and 228Ra occur in the waters with the highest general mineralization (the highest values of total dissolved solids (TDS)).