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Uranium and thorium radionuclides were measured on two gravity cores (T17G and T18G) and one box core (T19B) collected from the western South Okinawa Trough (SOT), one gravity core from off shore Southwest Taiwan (N3) and three box cores (C, D and E) from the northern South China Sea (SCS) in order to examine the variations of these radionuclides and their activity ratios in the sediments of the areas and to characterize the source function of the sediments and their geochemical implication based on these nuclides. For long half-life radionuclides such as 238U, 234U, 232Th and 230Th, the activities in the cores of the SOT and Southwest Taiwan areas show no significant vertical or areal variations, implying no significant variation in sediment supply or depositional environment within the past 100 years. The average activity of 238U is 1.65 dpm/g and 1.33 dpm/g in the SOT and Southwest Taiwan areas, respectively, and that of 232Th is 3.57 dpm/g and 3.34 dpm/g, respectively. The average activities of 238U and 232Th are, respectively, 1.37 dpm/g and 2.37 dpm/g in the SCS. The mean 232Th activity is lower in the SCS than in the SOT and Southwest Taiwan. The mean 232Th activity of the sediments in the SOT and Southwest Taiwan is quite comparable to that of the shale, slate and black schist in Taiwan, suggesting that these sediments are the terrigenous detrial materials from Taiwan. The 238U and 234U activities in the cores of these two areas show no significant vertical nor areal variations with activities ranging between 1.3 and 2 dpm/g, and their 234U /238U activity ratios being about 1.1, quite close to that of seawater (1.14). Since 238U and 234U are quite comparable among the three areas, the higher activity of 230Th in excess over 234U in the northern SCS may be due to greater water depth that allows more 234U produced 230Th to be scavenged from the water column. The uranium and thorium radionuclides and their activity ratios in the SOT and Southwest Taiwan sediments suggest that these sediments are the terrigenous detrial materials from Taiwan. The source function of the SCS sediments is more complex than that of the above-mentioned sediments.

In the analysis of environmental samples for uranium and thorium pollutants and at natural levels for the dating of geological samples there was felt a need to develop better uranium and thorium separation procedures to replace the established anion exchange method used at AEA Technology plc. This was the first aim of the PhD research. Separation of uranium from thorium prior to measurement of the isotopes by alpha spectrometry was necessary due to the similar alpha energies of234U and 230Th. TRU and UTEVA extraction chromatography resins (EIChroM Industries) were investigated as potential replacements to the anion exchange separation method. The resins are claimed by EIChroM to offer the advantage of providing an actinide specific separation while reducing the separation time from 2 to 0.5 days; the volume of acidic waste produced by a factor of 3, therefore, the cost of analysis was reduced. A uranium and thorium separation procedure using the UTEVA extraction chromatography resin was developed. The uranium and thorium were sorbed by the UTEVA resin from 2M nitric acid. The thorium was then eluted from the resin with 5M hydrochloric acid and the uranium with 0.02M hydrochloric acid. The separation procedure was then evaluated using uraninite ore, coral, granite and lake sediment reference materials. The uranium and thorium concentrations and the 234U/238U and 23oTh/234U activity ratio values determined for the reference material were in good agreement with certified values. The presence of plutonium was found to interfere with the measurement of uranium and thorium by alpha spectrometry. This was due to the similar alpha energies of uranium, thorium and plutonium. The co-elution of plutonium with uranium and thorium from the UTEVA resin was prevented by the inclusion of a reduction step using iron (Il) sulphamate. The resulting plutonium (Ill) was not retained by the UTEVA column. The chemical recoveries for the procedure were similar to those for anion-exchange, but the extraction chromatography procedure provided a more rapid separation using less reagents.