Abstract

In recent times, there are moves to boost the economy of Nigeria through intensive investment in solid minerals exploration. This may however be accompanied with increase in mining activities with the corresponding technological enhanced naturally occurring radioactive materials (TENORM) due to radiation from the ores, soil, rocks and radon that emanates from underground mine. Measurement of radon concentration and meteorological parameters in selected underground mines has been carried out using Radon Scout Plus. The radon concentration measured in the underground mines ranged between 49 - 225,000 Bq/m3. The relative humidity, temperature and pressure measured ranged between 40% and 91%, 220C and 29 0C and 975 mmHg and 991 mmHg respectively. There is a weak and negatively weak correlation between radon concentration, relative humidity and pressure with values of 0.23 and -0.18 at 0.05 level of significance respectively. For the principal component analysis, the second and third components are strongly loaded on temperature (0.992) and radon concentration (0.99) which indicates a different source of the radon gas in the underground mine which was from the radionuclide in the rocks in the mine. For the cluster analysis, cluster I comprises of Temperature, relative humidity and pressure and all metrological parameters. Varying one of the parameters can result to change in the other. Cluster II comprises of radon concentrations and time both at same distance. The result of the study reveals that meteorological parameters measured in the underground mines affects radon concentration.