7Be Measured at Ground Air Level and Rainfall in the City of SÃO Paulo

The cosmogenic radionuclide 7Be, produced in the upper atmosphere by cosmic ray spallation of oxygen and nitrogen, is one of the cosmogenic radionuclides that can be used as tracers for heavy metals and pollutants in the environment, tracer of soil erosion, transport processes in watershed and sedimentation in lakes, among other examples. Their subsequent deposition to the land surface occurs as both wet and dry fallout, although it has been demonstrated that 7Be fallout is primarily associated with precipitation. This short-lived radionuclide (T1/2 = 53.3 d) was measured, from March 2011 to July 2012, in samples of air at ground level, every fifteen days, and rainfall in all the rainy events that ocurred at Instituto de Pesquisas Energéticas e Nucleares (IPEN) which campus (23o32'S - 46o37'W at 760 m above sea level) is located in the city of São Paulo, state of São Paulo, Brazil. The concentrations of 7Be were measured by non-destructive gamma-ray spectrometry using a coaxial Be-layer HPGe detector with 25% relative efficiency, 2.09 keV resolution at 1.33 MeV for 60Co and associated electronic devices and live counting time varing from 150,000 s to 300,000 s. The results obtained were correlated to seasons, rainfall, temperature and sunspot number. The higher values obtained for the concentrations were in spring and summer time presenting good correlations with the amount of precipitation and sunspot number and a clearly seasonal variations was observed.