First international intercomparison of luminescence techniques using samples from the Techa river valley

Bricks collected from a contaminated village (Muslyumovo) of the lower Techa river valley, Southern Urals, Russia, were measured using thermoluminescence and optically stimulated luminescence by four European laboratories and a U.S. laboratory to establish and compare the applied dose reconstruction methodologies.

The bricks, collected from 60-100-year-old buildings, had accumulated a relatively high dose due to natural sources of radiation in the brick and from the surrounding environment. This work represents the results of a first international intercomparison of luminescence measurements for bricks from the Southern Urals.

The luminescence measurements of absorbed dose in bricks collected from the most shielded locations of the same buildings were used to determine the background dose due to natural sources of radiation and to validate the age of the bricks. The absorbed dose in different bricks measured by four laboratories using thermoluminescence and optically stimulated luminescence at a depth of 10 +/- 2.5 mm from the exposed brick surface agreed within +/-21%.

After subtraction of the natural background dose, the absorbed dose in brick due to contaminated river sediments and banks was calculated and found to range between 150 and 200 mGy. The cumulative doses in brick due to man-made sources of radiation at 100 and 130 mm depths in the bricks were also measured and found to be consistent with depth dose profiles calculated by Monte Carlo simulations of photon transport for possible source distributions.