Historia badań pierwiastków promieniotwórczych w PIG

The search for uranium in Poland began after the World War II and was initially conducted by Russians who in the mid-1950s were replaced by the Polish specialists. The Polish Geological Institute also took part in this research in 1956. In the initial phase of the search, the study was focused on the area of the Sudetes. Later, the research covered the entire territory of Poland using the so-called "parallel research”, which consisted mainly in the analysis of geophysical measurements from all the boreholes performed in Poland, and then the collection of samples from the zones with anomalous radioactivity. In this way, concentrations of uranium were found in the Lower Ordovician Dictyonema Shale of the Podlasie Depression and in the Lower Triassic of the Peribaltic Syneclise. Uranium was also searched in the area of the Carpathians, the Holy Cross Mountains, hard coal deposits of the Upper Silesian Coal Basin and in brown coals and phosphates. Uranium deposits in Poland have not been found and the current concentrations are not of economic value. Research methodology, which was used for uranium prospection in the 1990s, was successfully applied in geoenvironmental study, first of all for establishing post-Chernobyl cesium contamination and for preparing a map of the radon potential of the Sudetes.