Radionuclide Test Site

Cherdyntsev W (1971) Uranium-234. Israel Program for Scientific Translations, Jerusalem Cochran JK, Masque P (2003) Short-lived U/Th-series radionuclides in the ocean tracers for scavenging rates, export fluxes and particle dynamics. Rev Mineral Geochem 52 461-492 Copenhaver SA, Krishnaswami S, Turekian KK, Shaw H (1992) and Th series nuclides in groundwater from the J-13 well at the Nevada test site implications for ion retardation. Geophys Res Lett 19 1383-1386... 

DOE. 1991b. Radionuclides in surface soil at the Nevada test site. Washington, DC U.S. Department of Energy. NTIS/DE91018825. 

Lee SY, Tamura T, Larsen IL, et al. 1987. Characteristics of radionuclide-contaminated soils from the Sedan crater area at the Nevada test site. Soil Sci 144(2) 113 -121. 

Fig. 8. Radionuclide migration studied in a granitic shear zone at the Grimsel test site, Switzerland (injection flow rate 10 mL/min extraction flow rate 150 mL/min, dipole distance 2.3 m). Am(III), Pu(IV) and Th(IV) are co-eluted with the colloids grey vertical lines indicate maxima of breakthrough curves (Geckeis et al. 2003). In order to allow a direct comparison of breakthrough curves, the colloid and radionuclide concentrations (c in mg/mL) in the extracted water samples are normalized to the total injected mass of individual colloid or radionuclide tracers (mn in mg).

Mori, A., Alexander, W. R. et al. 2003. The colloid and radionuclide retardation experiment at the grimsel test site Influence of bentonite colloids on radionuclide migration in a fractured rock. Colloids Surfaces, 217, 33-47. 

Information on the interaction of radionuclides with ground-water in deeply-buried, high-level, long-term "waste repositories" is available at only a few locations. One is the OKLO natural reactor in Gabon which has for over 1. 7 billion years retained some of the radionuclides also present in nuclear wastes (5). Another is the Nevada test Site, where radionuclides were first deposited underground on September 19, 1967 during the 1.7 kt... 

Borg, I. Y., Stone, R., Levy, H. B., Ramspott, L. D., "Information Pertinent to the Migration of Radionuclides in Ground Water at the Nevada Test Site," Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, Rept. UCRL-52078, Part 1 "Review and Analysis of Existing Information," (May 25, 1976) ... 

The diffusion constant of Mo03 in the calcium aluminum silicate (CAS) melt may differ appreciably from that in the clay loam melt. However, Norman et al have also compared the diffusivities of cesium in CAS and in a melt of soil from the Nevada Test Site and found that the difference in diffusivities in the two matrices was smaller than the experimental uncertainties (12). They concluded that the CAS melt was a fair model of the Nevada soil with respect to the diffusion of most radionuclides of interest in fallout. 

Buddemeier, R.W. and Hunt, J.R., Transport of colloidal contaminants in groundwater Radionuclide migration at the Nevada Test Site, Appl. Geochem., 3, 535, 1988. 

Carlsen, T. M., Peterson, L. E., Ulsh, B. A., Werner, C. A., Purvis, K. L. Sharber (2001). Radionuclide contamination at Kazakhstan s Semipalatinsk test site Implications on human and ecological health. Human and Ecological Risk Assessment, 7(4), 943-955. 

The demands for assessing the potential impact of radionuclides produced by military and nuclear power supply applications on environmental quality and human and the desire to remediate radionuclide-contaminated site have triggered an intensive and wide range of research activities. Soil chemical reactions are critical to both environment and human health and to successful remediation. This chapter s aim is to briefly describes the physical and chemical characteristics of the most important radioactive nuclides likely to be found in soils. The primary sources of these radionuclides include the fallout from atmospheric weapon tests, release from fuel processes facilities, nuclear material storage facilities, biomedical applications, and, of course, naturally-occurring radioactive elements. The forms and interactions of the radionuclides in soil environment are subsequently discussed. 

Testing of nuclear weapons was the first and the largest source of contamination of the global environment by radionuclides. As the result of atmospheric tests by the Soviet Union, the United States, Britain, France and China 25 millions curies of Cs, 16 million curies of Sr and 6,5 billion curies of tritium were released into the global atmosphere, mostly between 1955 and 1966 [OTA. p. 34]. The Soviet Union conducted 715 nuclear tests on Semipalatinsk and Novaya Zemlya test-sites between 1949 and 1990. 

Current workers at former sites of weapons testing, such as the Nevada Test Site in the United States, remain at risk for inhalation exposures to resuspended radionuclides from contaminated soils. In a study on setting secondary standards... 

Workers at plutonium reprocessing facilities, nuclear reactors, transuranium and low level waste storage facilities, or those engaged in the production or processing of243Am or241 Am may be occupationally exposed to americium. In addition, workers at sites where nuclear testing was conducted may also be exposed to americium. Workers in nuclear power stations may be exposed to airborne radionuclides. The... 

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