RADIOACTIVE AND HEAVEY METALS IN SAHL EL-TENA AND THEIR ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT, NORTHWESTERN SINAI, EGYPT

Egyptian great governmental efforts are paid to convert Sahl El Tina into cultivated lands after 1967
war. The present soil is belonging to the fluvio- marine plain. Textural analysis has been performed to
classify the studied soil into fluvio- marine type as loamy–sand texture.
Epidot, garnet, sphene, rutile, ilmenite, magnetite, chromite, pyrite and zircon are the main identified
heavy minerals which concentrated in the study fraction of the studied soil. kaolinite is the most common
clay mineral associated with montmorillonite in all the studied samples .
The Sahl El-Tina soil shows significant metal pollution because of the loading of some elements such as
Ba,V, Zr, Zn, Cr, Sr, U and Th. Also the dry plant (bearl) has the same elements in addition to Ni, Pb, Co
and Cu. These metals could be absorbed by plant roots and concentrated in leaves causing some harmful
problems.
The obtained cU results of Sahl El-Tina soil (av. 20ppm) and plant (av.11.4 ppm.) are higher than the
Egyptian and International soils and plants values. It can be noted that the studied soil was considered as
high hazard polluted source for radioactive.