Caesium fallout

Measurements of activity in grass and soil in areas where no rain fell at the relevant time have been used to estimate dry deposition after the Chernobyl accident. In Denmark and in southern England, vg for137Cs was about 0.5 mm s 1 (Roed, 1987 Clark Smith, 1988). In Stockholm, however, where the Chernobyl fallout arrived several days earlier, and the particle size was larger, the dry deposition velocity of caesium was 5 mm s 1 (Persson et al., 1987). Refractory elements such as 95Zr had dry deposition velocities about 20 mm s 1. 

Baumann, A., Schimmack, W., Steindl, H. and Bunzl, K. (1996) Association of fallout caesium with soil constituents effect of sterilisation of forest soils by fumigation with chloroform. Radiat. Environ. Biophys., 35, 229-233. 

Epidemiological studies of populations in the FSU exposed to fallout from the 1986 nuclear reactor explosion at Chernobyl and releases from the Chelyabinsk-65 complex demonstrate the health effects associated with exposure to radioactive iodine, strontium, and caesium. A study of 2.81 X 10" individuals exposed along the Techa River, downstream from Chelyabinsk-65, revealed that a statistically significant increase in leukemia mortality arose between 5 yr and 20 yr after the initial exposure (37 observed deaths versus 14-23 expected deaths see Cochran et al. (1993) and cited references and comments). There has been a significant increase of thyroid cancers among children in the areas contaminated by fallout from the Chernobyl explosion (Harley, 2001 UNSCEAR, 2000). The initial external exposures from Chernobyl were due to and short-lived isotopes. Subsequently, external exposures to Cs and nd internal... 

Panin A. V., Walling D. E., and Golosov V. N. (2001) The role of soil erosion and fluvial processes in the post-fallout redistribution of Chernobyl-derived caesium-137 a case study of the Lapki Catchment, central Russia. Geomorphology 40, 185-204. 

Owens, P.N., D.E. Walling, and Q.P. He. 1996. The behaviour of bomb-derived caesium-137 fallout in catchment soils. J. Environ. Radioactivity 32(3) 169-191. 

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