Doses from Measured Environmental Concentrations

In a survey of the content in human dietary items in the Pacific 

Northwest, Brauer et al. (1974b) reported the maximum jatiQg 

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The majority of the longer-lived transuranic nuclides produced by neutron capture reactions decay primarily by a-emission. Most environmental samples contain radionuclides from the natural uranium and thorium series in concentrations often many times greater than transuranic concentrations. As a result, the chemical problems encountered in these measurements are derived from the requirement that separated trans-uranics should be free of a-emitting natural-series nuclides which would constitute a-spectrometric interferences. Table I lists those transuranic nuclides detected to date in marine environmental samples, together with some relevant nuclear properties. Their relative concentrations (on an activity basis) are indicated although the ratios may be altered by environmental fractionation processes which enrich and deplete the relative concentrations of the various transuranic elements. Alpha spectrometric measurements do not distinguish between 239p Pu, so these are... 

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