Investigations on the location and construction of a low background gamma-spectrometer

The underground radiation conditions in the mining district of Freiberg and in a rock salt environment of the Werra district were investigated. In a salt mine a very low natural activity level can be found. For selection of proper shielding materials a low-level -spectrometer and an optimum sample geometry must be used. The photopeak differences between sample and blank are small in most cases. Considerable differences can be found in the continuous background below 0.7 MeV.