Radioactive wastes nuclear weapon tests, fallout from

Radioactive substances The principal sources of radionuclides released into the environment include nuclear weapon testing fallout from accidents such as the Chernobyl accident in 1986 or from foundering of nuclear submarines from the dumping of nuclear waste into the deep ocean and from discharges from nuclear power plants and nuclear reprocessing plants. 

Besides the analysis of nuclear fuel and of radioactive waste materials, the determination of contamination and enrichment of selected radioactive nuclides, e.g., which is one of the most important environmental indicators of nuclear accidents, Se, Tc, Np, Pu, °Pu and "Am at ultratrace concentration levels, is useful for environmental monitoring of fallout from nuclear weapons testing, nuclear power plants or nuclear accidents. ". Selected application fields for the determination of natural and artificial long-lived radionuclides (LLR) and radionuclides investigated by mass spectrometric techniques are summarized in Tables 9.36 and 9.37, respectively. 

Soils may become contaminated from fallout associated with nuclear weapons tests, such as those conducted at the Trinity Site in southern New Mexico, the Pacific Proving Ground at the Enewetak Atoll, and the Nevada Test Site or with accidental, non-nuclear detonation of nuclear weapons, such as occurred at Palomares, Spain. Research facilities, such as the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, may release treated radioactive wastes under controlled conditions. Production facilities, such as the Hanford and Savannah River Plants and experimental reactor stations, for example, the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, Idaho Falls, Idaho, also released treated plutonium-bearing radioactive wastes under controlled conditions to soils (Hanson 1975). 

Radionuclide-tracer studies in natural marine environments obviously must rely on natural radioactivity in the environment or on radionuclides introduced from the activities of man such as fallout from nuclear-weapons testing or release of major amounts of nuclear waste such as from the Hanford Operations via the Columbia River. Some studies of this type have been discussed. We will conclude this section with those that are more closely related to investigations of com-plete ecosystems or subsystems. 

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