[ RadSafe ] Radioactive Boars

[Michael McNaughton]

Dan and all

By the way, the uptake of Cs-137 also depends on the availability of
potassium in the soil. If potassium is scarce, biota will take up cesium.
This is discussed in the recent NCRP report on Cs-137.

For example, at the Savannah River Site (SRS), the soil has less potassium
than average and Cs-137 is taken up into plants and animals, whereas at Los
Alamos the soil contains more potassium than average and very little Cs-137
is taken up into biota.
	
Does anyone have access to data for the potassium concentrations in the soil
near Chernobyl? 

Mike McNaughton
Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL)

-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu
[mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of Dan W McCarn
Sent: Sunday, August 22, 2010 7:30 PM
To: 'The International Radiation Protection (Health Physics) MailingList'
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Radioactive Boars

Hi Group:

Joel is right. I think that I've mentioned this before, but many soils
containing clays allow Cs-137 to become irreversibly adsorbed into the clay
lattice structure, making it unaccessible biologically.  I would expect that
the "bioavailable" Cs-137 to diminish significantly faster than the loss
through half-life disintegration. However (the caveat), forest soils do not
contain much clay. Forest soils in Austria & Germany tend to be
"peat-forming soils" locally and certainly the upper 20 cm tend to be
dominated by degraded organic material with a very high cation-exchange
capacity.  Cesium has a high cation-exchange selectivity, so the humus zone
tends to concentrate Cs-137.  Since mushrooms utilize this zone and also
hyperaccumulate Cesium, the mushrooms can be pretty hot.  The French
experimented with harvesting mushrooom caps around Chernobyl to remediate
soils. 


Dan ii

--
Dan W McCarn, Geologist
108 Sherwood Blvd
Los Alamos, NM 87544-3425
+1-505-672-2014 (Home - New Mexico)
+1-505-670-8123 (Mobile - New Mexico)
HotGreenChile at gmail.com (Private email) HotGreenChile at gmail dot com





-----Original Message-----
From: radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu
[mailto:radsafe-bounces at health.phys.iit.edu] On Behalf Of Joel C.
Sent: Friday, August 20, 2010 11:31
To: radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu
Subject: Re: [ RadSafe ] Radioactive Boars

Some readers failed to note that the Cs-137 has migrated downward in soil to
the stratum that mushrooms draw from.  Hence, the rad levels in mushrooms
have gone up.  Re-concentration factors are at work.


Joel I. Cehn, CHP
http://www.linkedin.com/in/joelcehn 



-----Original Message-----

------------------------------
Date: Thu, 19 Aug 2010 22:32:30 -0400
rom: "Joel C." <cehn at aol.com>
ubject: [ RadSafe ] Radioactive Boars
o: radsafe at health.phys.iit.edu
essage-ID: <8CD0E2712A0756A-239C-72C1 at webmail-m034.sysops.aol.com>
ontent-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

hernobyl fallout residue:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100819/ap_on_re_eu/eu_germany_radioactive_boars
Interesting why the Cs-137 levels are peaking now in game meat...

Joel I. Cehn, CHP 
ttp://www.linkedin.com/in/joelcehn 



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