Radioactive waste containing a few grams of plutonium (Pu) was disposed between 1960 and 1968 in trenches at the Little Forest Burial Ground (LFBG), near Sydney, Australia. A water sampling point installed in a former trench has enabled the radionuclide content of trench water and the response of the water level to rainfall to be studied. The trench water contains readily measurable Pu activity (∼12 Bq/L of 239+240Pu in 0.45 μm-filtered water), and there is an associated contamination of Pu in surface soils. The highest 239+240Pu soil activity was 829 Bq/kg in a shallow sample (0–1 cm depth) near the trench sampling point. Away from the trenches, the elevated concentrations of Pu in surface soils extend for tens of meters down-slope. The broader contamination may be partly attributable to dispersion events in the first decade after disposal, after which a layer of soil was added above the trenched area. Since this time, further Pu contamination has occurred near the trench-sampler within this added layer. The water level in the trench-sampler responds quickly to rainfall and intermittently reaches the surface, hence the Pu dispersion is attributed to saturation and overflow of the trenches during extreme rainfall events, referred to as the ‘bathtub’ effect.

Over the last decade there has been a deliberate focus on the application of paleolimnological research to address issues of sediment flux and water quality change in the wetlands of the Murray-Darling Basin of Australia. This paper reports on the research outcomes on cores collected from sixteen wetlands along the Murrumbidgee-Murray River continuum. In all sixteen wetlands radiometric techniques and exotic pollen biomarkers were used to establish sedimentation rates from the collected cores. Fossil diatom assemblages were used to identify water source and quality changes to the wetlands. The sedimentation rates of all wetlands accelerated after European settlement, as little as two-fold, and as much as eighty times the mean rate through the Late Holocene. Some wetlands completely infilled through the Holocene, while others have rapidly progressed towards a terrestrial state due to accelerated accretion rates. Increasing wetland salinity and turbidity commenced within decades of settlement, contributing to sediment inputs. The sedimentation rate was observed to slow after river regulation in one wetland, but has accelerated recently in others. The complex history of flooding and drying, and wetland salinisation and eutrophication, influence the reliability of models used to establish recent, fine-resolution chronologies with confidence and the capacity to attribute causes to documented effects.

Titanium dioxide (TiO(2)) has often served as a model substrate for experimental sorption studies of environmental contaminants. However, various forms of Ti-oxide have been used, and the different sorption properties of these materials have not been thoroughly studied. We investigated uranium sorption on some thoroughly characterized TiO(2) surfaces with particular attention to the influence of surface area, surface charge, and impurities. The sorption of U(VI) differed significantly between samples. Aggressive pretreatment of one material to remove impurities significantly altered the isoelectric point, determined by an electroacoustic method, but did not significantly impact U sorption. Differences in sorption properties between the various TiO(2) materials were related to the crystallographic form, morphology, surface area, and grain size, rather than to surface impurities or surface charge. In-situ attenuated total reflection Fourier-transform infrared (ATR FT-IR) spectroscopic studies showed that the spectra of the surface species of the TiO(2) samples are not significantly different, suggesting the formation of similar surface complexes. The data provide insights into the effect of different source materials and surface properties on radionuclide sorption.

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