The purpose of this diary is to report on a recently published (Jan 2015) open-access, peer reviewed study which examined the activities of 137Cs (half life 30.2 yr), 134Cs (half life ~2.1 yr) and 90Sr (half life ~28.8 yr) in the northwest Pacific off the coasts of Japan and China. The diary is part of a ongoing effort to communicate the results of scientific research into the impact of the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear disaster on environmental and public health. Men and colleagues report on how activities of these fission produced isotopes changed between three research expeditions in June 2011, December 2011 and June 2012. Activities in seawater decreased dramatically through time for all three isotopes consistent with very high release rates measured from the Fukushima site in March-April 2011 followed by ongoing but many orders of magnitude (10,000 – 100,000 fold) lower releases from the site thereafter. By 2012 the impact of the Fukushima releases could be still be detected in most samples for Cs isotopes however 90Sr distributions were much more uniform with the highest measured activity only slightly above the pre-Fukushima background. These results are consistent with:
- the relatively small source term for 90Sr from compared with the Cs isotopes from Fukushima as determined by measurements of air, soil and water after the disaster
- the much lower Fukushima derived activities for these isotopes in the eastern Pacific off of North America being measured given decay and mixing of the contamination as it is transported by ocean currents
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