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The AAPG/Datapages Combined Publications Database

AAPG Bulletin

Abstract


Volume: 34 (1950)

Issue: 4. (April)

First Page: 742

Last Page: 754

Title: Radioactivity Survey in Southwest France

Author(s): E. N. Tiratsoo (2)

Abstract:

The radioactivity surface survey is valuable in the differentiation of sedimentary beds in areas where surface exposures alone are insufficient. It is most useful in delineating boundaries between different beds which are otherwise obscured, particularly where there is good lithologic contrast between the surface rocks and provided too many beds are not present in a small area. This technique, in which a highly sensitive battery-operated form of portable Geiger-Muller counter is employed, has the limitation that it can only be used in localities where the soil is autochthonous, but is otherwise a very useful aid to geological mapping.

This paper describes an investigation carried out by surface radioactivity measurements in southwestern France in one part of the Aquitaine sedimentary basin. In the coastal area between Biarritz and St. Jean-de-Luz, a plug of gypsiferous Keuper shale is exposed between the Senonian-Turonian Bidache limestone on the north and the Paleocene limestone on the south. A radioactivity traverse was made from Cap Martin to Guethary on this coast and it is deduced from the results obtained that there is no evidence that the "ophite" outcropping at the Rochers de Peyreblanque is of the same age as the Keuper plug, as has previously been suggested. Furthermore, the Keuper plug showed a remarkably high radioactivity which reached its peak about its geographical center. Certain corrections in the ccepted geological boundaries of the area are suggested.

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