Determining gamma dose rates by field gamma spectroscopy in sedimentary media: Results of Monte Carlo simulations

Field gamma spectrometers are widely used to determine gamma dose rates in sedimentary media. However the most widely used technique-the 'window technique'-is time consuming and introduces important statistical uncertainty in the determination of the radioelement contents, and finally on the gamma dose rate. The threshold technique directly relates the number of counts recorded above certain threshold energy to the gamma dose rate. Recently new experimental measurements further investigated this technique but it has not been tested in various sedimentary media. In this paper, numerical simulations using a specifically designed Geant4 code allow to test the sensitivity of this technique to changes of sediments nature, humidity content and disequilibrium in the U-series. Finally another threshold technique, relating the gamma dose rate to the energy per unit time deposited above another threshold energy, is investigated. It is shown than the latter has a number of advantages compared to the classical techniques. Experimental results testing this approach are presented.