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"Radioactive Fallout"
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The shrinking man
While on a boating holiday, Scott Carey is exposed to a cloud of radioactive spray. A few weeks later, following a series of medical examinations, he can no longer deny the extraordinary truth. Not only is he losing weight, he is also shorter than he was. Scott Carey has begun to shrink. Richard Matheson's novel follows through its premise with remorseless logic, with Carey first attempting to continue some kind of normal life and later having left human contact behind, having to survive in a world where insects and spiders are giant adversaries. And even that is only a stage on his journey into the unknown.
Book
Downwind
Downwindis an unflinching tale of the atomic West that reveals the intentional disregard for human and animal life through nuclear testing by the federal government and uranium extraction by mining corporations during and after the Cold War.
Sarah Alisabeth Fox highlights the personal cost of nuclear testing and uranium extraction in the American West through extensive interviews with \"downwinders,\" the Native American and non-Native residents of the Great Basin region affected by nuclear environmental contamination and nuclear-testing fallout. These downwinders tell tales of communities ravaged by cancer epidemics, farmers and ranchers economically ruined by massive crop and animal deaths, and Native miners working in dangerous conditions without proper safety equipment so that the government could surreptitiously study the effects of radiation on humans.
In chilling detailDownwindbrings to light the stories and concerns of these groups whose voices have been silenced and marginalized for decades in the name of \"patriotism\" and \"national security.\"
With the renewed boom in mining in the American West, Fox's look at this hidden history, unearthed from years of field interviews, archival research, and epidemiological studies, is a must-read for every American concerned about the fate of our western lands and communities.
eBook
Fukushima-derived radionuclides in the ocean and biota off Japan
The Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami of March 11,2011, resulted in unprecedented radioactivity releases from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plants to the Northwest Pacific Ocean. Results are presented here from an international study of radionuclide contaminants in surface and subsurface waters, as well as in zooplankton and fish, off Japan in June 2011. A major finding is detection of Fukushima-derived ¹³⁴Cs and ¹³⁷Cs throughout waters 30-600 km offshore, with the highest activities associated with near-shore eddies and the Kuroshio Current acting as a southern boundary for transport. Fukushima-derived Cs isotopes were also detected in Zooplankton and mesopelagic fish, and unique to this study we also find ¹¹⁰mAg in Zooplankton. Vertical profiles are used to calculate a total inventory of ~2 PBq ¹³⁷Cs in an ocean area of 150,000 km². Our results can only be understood in the context of our drifter data and an oceanographic model that shows rapid advection of contaminants further out in the Pacific. Importantly, our data are consistent with higher estimates of the magnitude of Fukushima fallout and direct releases [Stohl et al. (2011) Atmos Chem Phys Discuss 11:28319-28394; Bailly du Bois et al. (2011) J Environ Radioact, 10.1016/j.jenvrad.2011.11.015]. We address risks to public health and marine biota by showing that though Cs isotopes are elevated 10-1,000× over prior levels in waters off Japan, radiation risks due to these radionuclides are below those generally considered harmful to marine animals and human consumers, and even below those from naturally occurring radionuclides.
Journal Article
Hadal disturbance in the Japan Trench induced by the 2011 Tohoku–Oki Earthquake
In situ
video observations and sediment core samplings were performed at two hadal sites in the Japan Trench on July, 2011, four months after the Tohoku–Oki earthquake. Video recordings documented dense nepheloid layers extending ~30–50 m above the sea bed. At the trench axis, benthic macrofauna was absent and dead organisms along with turbid downslope current were observed. The top 31 cm of sediment in the trench axis revealed three recent depositions events characterized by elevated
137
Cs levels and alternating sediment densities. At 4.9 km seaward from the trench axis, little deposition was observed but the surface sediment contained
134
Cs from the Fukushima Dai–ichi nuclear disaster. We argue that diatom blooms observed by remote sensing facilitated rapid deposition of
134
Cs to hadal environment and the aftershocks induced successive sediment disturbances and maintained dense nepheloid layers in the trench even four months after the mainshock.
Journal Article
Cesium-137 deposition and contamination of Japanese soils due to the Fukushima nuclear accident
The largest concern on the cesium-137 (137Cs) deposition and its soil contamination due to the emission from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) showed up after a massive quake on March 11, 2011. Cesium-137 (137Cs) with a half-life of 30.1 y causes the largest concerns because of its deleterious effect on agriculture and stock farming, and, thus, human life for decades. Removal of 137Cs contaminated soils or land use limitations in areas where removal is not possible is, therefore, an urgent issue. A challenge lies in the fact that estimates of 137Cs emissions from the Fukushima NPP are extremely uncertain, therefore, the distribution of 137Cs in the environment is poorly constrained. Here, we estimate total 137Cs deposition by integrating daily observations of 137Cs deposition in each prefecture in Japan with relative deposition distribution patterns from a Lagrangian particle dispersion model, FLEXPART. We show that 137Cs strongly contaminated the soils in large areas of eastern and northeastern Japan, whereas western Japan was sheltered by mountain ranges. The soils around Fukushima NPP and neighboring prefectures have been extensively contaminated with depositions of more than 100,000 and 10,000 MBq km-2, respectively. Total 137Cs depositions over two domains: (i) the Japan Islands and the surrounding ocean (130–150 °E and 30–46 °N) and, (ii) the Japan Islands, were estimated to be more than 5.6 and 1.0 PBq, respectively. We hope our 137Cs deposition maps will help to coordinate decontamination efforts and plan regulatory measures in Japan.
Journal Article
Strontium-90 activity concentration in soil samples from the exclusion zone of the Fukushima daiichi nuclear power plant
The radioactive fission product
90
Sr has a long biological half-life (˜18 y) in the human body. Due to its chemical similarity to calcium it accumulates in bones and irradiates the bone marrow, causing its high radio-toxicity. Assessing
90
Sr is therefore extremely important in case of a nuclear disaster. In this work 16 soil samples were collected from the exclusion zone (<30 km) of the earthquake-damaged Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, to measure
90
Sr activity concentration using liquid scintillation counting.
137
Cs activity concentration was also measured with gamma-spectroscopy in order to investigate correlation with
90
Sr. The
90
Sr activity concentrations ranged from 3.0 ± 0.3 to 23.3 ± 1.5 Bq kg
−1
while the
137
Cs from 0.7 ± 0.1 to 110.8 ± 0.3 kBq kg
−1
. The fact that radioactive contamination originated from the Fukushima nuclear accident was obvious due to the presence of
134
Cs. However,
90
Sr contamination was not confirmed in all samples although detectable amounts of
90
Sr can be expected in Japanese soils, as a background, stemming from global fallout due to the atmospheric nuclear weapon tests. Correlation analysis between
90
Sr and
137
Cs activity concentrations provides a potentially powerful tool to discriminate background
90
Sr level from its Fukushima contribution.
Journal Article
Radioactivity spreads in Japan
Initial estimates suggest that Fukushima's reactors have emitted one-tenth of all the radioactive material released during the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, and prevailing winds have swept most of the radioactivity over the Pacific Ocean. Austria's Central Institute for Meteorology and Geodynamics in Vienna estimated last week that although Fukushima's radioactive plume has now dispersed across the Northern Hemisphere, negligible levels of volatile radioisotopes such as iodine-131 and caesium-137 (the major components of the plume) have hit countries outside Japan.
Journal Article
Nuclear Weapons Tests and Environmental Consequences: A Global Perspective
The beginning of the atomic age marked the outset of nuclear weapons testing, which is responsible for the radioactive contamination of a large number of sites worldwide. The paper aims to analyze nuclear weapons tests conducted in the second half of the twentieth century, highlighting the impact of radioactive pollution on the atmospheric, aquatic, and underground environments. Special attention was given to the concentration of main radioactive isotopes which were released, such as ¹⁴C, ¹³⁷Cs, and ⁹⁰Sr, generally stored in the atmosphere and marine environment. In addition, an attempt was made to trace the spatial delimitation of the most heavily contaminated sites worldwide, and to note the human exposure which has caused a significantly increased incidence of thyroidal cancer locally and regionally. The United States is one of the important examples of assessing the correlation between the increase in the thyroid cancer incidence rate and the continental-scale radioactive contamination with ¹³¹I, a radioactive isotope which was released in large amounts during the nuclear tests carried out in the main test site, Nevada.
Journal Article
LARCalc, a tool to estimate sex- and age-specific lifetime attributable risk in populations after nuclear power plant fallout
A tool called LARCalc, for calculating the radiological consequences of accidental large scale nuclear power plant releases based on estimates of
137
Cs ground deposition, is presented. LARCalc is based on a previously developed models that has been further developed and packaged into an easy-to-use decision support tool for training of decision makers. The software visualises the radiological impact of accidental nuclear power plant releases and the effects of various protective measures. It is thus intended as a rapid alternative for planning protective measures in emergency preparedness management. The tool predicts projected cumulative effective dose, projected lifetime attributable cancer risk, and residual dose for some default accidental release scenarios. Furthermore, it can predict the residual dose and avertable cumulative lifetime attributable risk (LAR) resulting from various protective measures such as evacuation and decontamination. It can also be used to predict the avertable collective dose and the increase in cancer incidence within the specified population. This study presents the theoretical models and updates to the previous models, and examples of different nuclear fallout scenarios and subsequent protective actions to illustrate the potential use of LARCalc.
Journal Article