Weapons tests

Eisenberg et al. (1975) developed estimates of fatalities due to thermal radiation damage using data and correlations from nuclear weapons testing. The probability of fatality was found to be generally proportional to the product where t is the radiation duration and 7 is the radiation intensity. Table 6.7 shows the data used to develop estimates of fatalities from thermal radiation data. 

The earliest tables were compiled from data collected from nuclear weapon tests, in which very high yield devices produced sharp-peaked shock waves with long durations for the positive phase. However, these data are used for other types of blast waves as well. Caution should be exercised in application of these simple criteria to buildings or structures, especially for vapor cloud explosions, which can produce blast waves with totally different shapes. Application of criteria from nuclear tests can, in many cases, result in overestimation of structural damage. 

The eoneentration of tritium inereased by over a hundredfold when thermonuelear weapon testing began on Bikini Atoll in Mareh 1954 but has now subsided as a result of the ban on atmospherie weapon testing and the natural radioaetivity of... 

Andrei Sakliarov was a Soviet physicist who became, in the words of the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, a spokesman for the conscience of mankind. He made many important contributions to our understanding of plasma physics, particle physics, and cosmology. He also designed nuclear weapons for two decades, becoming the father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb in the Ih.SOs. After recognizing the dangers of nuclear weapons tests, he championed the 1963 U.S.-Soviet test ban treaty and other antinuclear initiatives. 

Air and natural gas have also been used as drilling fluids in slim-hole-drilling mining operations, special large-diameter boreholes for nuclear weapons tests, and, more recently, in geothermal drilling operations. 

The radiation hazard associated with fallout from nuclear weapons testing arises from radioactive isotopes such as these. One of the most dangerous is strontium-90. In the form of strontium carbonate, SrC03, it is incorporated into the bones of animals and human beings, where it remains far a lifetime. 

The major source of plutonium in natural waters is the atmospheric fallout from nuclear weapons tests. Fallout plutonium is ubiquitous in marine and freshwater environments of the world with higher concentrations in the northern hemisphere where the bulk of nuclear weapons testing occurred(3). Much of the research on the aquatic chemistry of plutonium takes place in marine and freshwater systems where only fallout is present. 

Atmospheric fallout from nuclear weapon tests and aquatic... 

Goldsmith, P., Tuck, A. F., Foot, J. S., Simmons, E. L., and Newson, R. L. (1973). Nitrogen oxides, nuclear weapon testing, Concorde, and stratospheric ozone. Nature 244, 545-551. 

Care must also be taken to not confuse the perturbation, e.g. from nuclear weapons testing with the ACO2 perturbation lifetime. The former is largely due to fast isotopic exchange while the latter is controlled by a slower mass flux. 

Am released to the atmosphere will be associated with particles and will settle to earth or be washed from the air in precipitation (e.g., rain, snow). 241 Am from atmospheric nuclear weapons tests is injected into the stratosphere and may remain in the atmosphere for decades, traveling all around the world and only slowly settling to earth. 241 Am released in nuclear accidents, like Chernobyl, stays in the lower atmosphere where it can begin settling out near the site from which it is released. Larger particles will settle out more quickly and over a smaller area smaller particles may remain in the atmosphere for several months and travel far from where they are released. Precipitation scrubs particles out of the air more rapidly and deposits them in areas where the precipitation occurs. 

Americium released to the atmosphere will be associated with particulate matter and will be deposited on land or surface water by dry deposition or wet deposition (Essien et al. 1985). Dry deposition results from gravitational settling and impaction on surfaces, and wet deposition returns americium to earth in precipitation. Radionuclides resulting from atmospheric weapons tests are often injected into the lower stratosphere, while other atmospheric releases are into the troposphere. The residence time of particles in the atmosphere will depend on the altitude, latitude, season, and hemisphere because of atmospheric... 

Exposure of the general population to 241 Am via air, water, soil, and food are generally very low these background levels are a result of fallout from past atmospheric nuclear weapons tests. Since 1973, 241Am air concentrations have been less than 1 aCi/m3 (0.037 pBq/m3) and are continuing to decline (Bennett 1979). Levels around nuclear power plants are indistinguishable from fallout background (EPRI 1981). 

Northern Marshall Islands Radiological Survey (NMlRSf, site ofU.S. atmospheric including BRAVO explosion on 3/1/54 weapons testing from 1946 to 1958, Robison etal. 1997a... 

Nuclear Weapons Testing Range, Maralinga, South Australia, site of 12 hydronuclear experiments at Taranaki in 1960, 1961, and 1963 (Vixen B Trials) in which 22.2 kg of plutonium was dispersed, having been ejected 2,500feet vertically into the atmosphere. Cooper etal. 1994... 

Denmark 1.5 days after the explosion. Air samples collected at Roskilde, Denmark on April 27-28, contained a mean air concentration of 241Am of 5.2 pBq/m3 (0.14 fCi/m3). In May 1986, the mean concentration was 11 pBq/m3 (0.30 fCi/m3) (Aarkrog 1988). Whereas debris from nuclear weapons testing is injected into the stratosphere, debris from Chernobyl was injected into the troposphere. As the mean residence time in the troposphere is 20-40 days, it would appear that the fallout would have decreased to very low levels by the end of 1986. However, from the levels of other radioactive elements, this was not the case. Sequential extraction studies were performed on aerosols collected in Lithuania after dust storms in September 1992 carried radioactive aerosols to the region from contaminated areas of the Ukraine and Belarus. The fraction distribution of241 Am in the aerosol samples was approximately (fraction, percent) organically-bound, 18% oxide-bound, 10% acid-soluble, 36% and residual, 32% (Lujaniene et al. 1999). Very little americium was found in the more readily extractable exchangeable and water soluble and specifically adsorbed fractions. 

Bums PA, Cooper MB, Lokan KH, et al. 1995. Characteristics of plutonium and americium contamination at the former U.K. atomic weapons test ranges at Maralinga and Emu. Appl Radiat Isot 46(11) 1099-1107. 

Cooper MB, Bums PA, Tracy BL, et al. 1994. Characterization of plutonium contamination at the former nuclear weapons testing range at Maralinga in South Australia. J Radioanal Nucl Chem 177(1) 161-184. 

---