Regional distribution patterns of heavy metals and radionuclides in the East European Plain

Abstract

Identification of stable regularities in the distribution of heavy metals and radionuclides in soil profiles of the East European Plain is an important scientific and practical task. Heavy metals are easily included in the biological cycle, getting into the human body, are accumulated in the bones, tissues, causing incurable disease, which may subsequently proceed unnoticed. The peculiarity of radioactive pollutants is that they usually do not change the level of soil fertility, but accumulate in crops. Therefore, maximum permissible concentrations (MPC) of radionuclides have been established for human food and animal feed. When analyzing the results of the study, it was revealed that soil horizons are well traced by the content of heavy metals, which makes it possible to get an idea of the soil profile structure by the content of heavy metals in them. The content of natural radionuclides in carbonate yellow-brown clays was established for the first time. According to the obtained correlation data of radionuclides and gross content of heavy metals and a number of oxides of heavy metals with a sufficient degree of reliability we can determine the content of this or that radionuclide, being aware of the percentage content of the element or oxide in the soil.