The radioactivity of seasonal dust storms in the Middle East: the May 2012 case study in Jordan

Dust storms in the Middle East are common during spring. Some of these storms are massive and carry a large amount of dust from faraway regions, which pose health and pollution risks. The huge dust storm event occurred in early May, 2012 was investigated for its radioactive content using gamma ray spectroscopy. Dust samples were collected from Northern Jordan and it was found that the storm carried a large amount of both artificial and natural radioactivity. The average activity concentration of fallout ¹³⁷Cs was 17.0 Bq/kg which is larger than that found in soil (2.3 Bq/kg), and this enrichment is attributed to particle size effects. ⁷Be which is of atmospheric origin and has a relatively short half-life, was detected in dust with relatively large activity concentrations, as it would be expected, with an average of 2860 Bq/kg, but it was not detected in soil. Despite the large activity concentration of ⁷Be, dose assessment showed that it does not contribute significantly to the effective dose through inhalation. The concentrations of the primodial nuclides ⁴⁰K, ²³²Th and ²³⁸U were 547, 30.0 and 49.3 Bq/kg, respectively. With the exception of ⁴⁰K, these were comparable to what was found in soil. - Highlights: • We investigated the radioactivity content of the May 2012 dust storm in the Middle East. • The dust storm was found to have large amount of ¹³⁷C. • We found that large amount of cosmogenic ⁷Be are deposited to soil through dust storm