(220)Rn/(222)Rn isotope pair as a natural proxy for soil gas transport

Radon (Rn) is a naturally occurring radioactive noble gas, which is ubiquitous in soil gas. Especially, its long-lived isotope (222)Rn (half-life: 3.82 d) gained widespread acceptance as a tracer for gas transport in soils, while the short-lived (220)Rn (half-life: 55.6 s) found less interest in environmental studies. However, in some cases, the application of (222)Rn as a tracer in soil gas is complex as its concentrations can be influenced by changes of the transport conditions or of the (222)Rn production of the soil material. Due to the different half-lives of (220)Rn and (222)Rn, the distances that can be traveled by the respective isotopes before decay differ significantly, with (220)Rn migrating over much shorter distances than (222)Rn. Therefore, the soil gas concentrations of (220)Rn and (222)Rn are influenced by processes on different length scales. In laboratory experiments in a sandbox, we studied the different transport behaviors of (220)Rn and (222)Rn resulting from changing the boundary conditions for diffusive transport and from inducing advective gas movements. From the results gained in the laboratory experiments, we propose the combined analysis of (220)Rn and (222)Rn to determine gas transport processes in soils. In a field study on soil gases in the cover soil of a capped landfill we applied the combined analysis of (220)Rn and (222)Rn in soil gas for the first time and showed the feasibility of this approach to characterize soil gas transport processes.