Radiometric Traverse of the Seabed off the Yorkshire Coast

SURFACE and airborne radiometric surveys carried out over land areas during the past twenty years have shown that in addition to locating radioactive mineral deposits they are able to differentiate between the common types of rocks and sediments. As yet, however, few attempts have been made to extend radiometric techniques to the sea floor and, as far as we know, none of these has included in situ seabed gamma spectrometry. Bastin 1 towed a gamma ray detector across recent sediments off the Belgian coast and was able to delineate areas of muds, sands and clays. Summerhayes et al. 2 , in the course of a study of phosphorite deposits off NW Africa, also made total gamma measurements at a number of sampling stations upon the continental shelf and slope. Subsequent analysis of the samples showed that anomalous radioactivity could be related to the phosphate content of the sediments. Almost all other seabed radioactivity measurements have been connected with the use of radioactive tracers to determine sediment movement.