Plutonium and other alpha emitters in mushrooms from Poland, Spain and Ukraine

137Cs, 239,240Pu and 241Am in boreal forest soil and their transfer into wild mushrooms and berries

“…According to Baeza et al (2004), the uptake of 239,240 Pu by mushrooms is also far lower than that of 137 Cs. Pu is rather insoluble in the environment and is not therefore expected to easily transfer from soil to the fruiting bodies of mushrooms or to plants (Mietelski et al, 2002). Even though the number of samples was fairly low, and four out of fourteen analyses yielded activities below the detection limits, we can suggest some conclusions.…”

137Cs and 40K in fruiting bodies of different fungal species collected in a single forest in southern Poland

“…During 1991 a large collection of forest samples from Poland was obtained in a campaign supported by the Polish Ministry of Forestry (Mietelski, 1994;. This allowed for the acquisition of data on radioactive contamination of forest litter, plants and fungal fruitbodies (Mietelski et al, 1994(Mietelski et al, , 1999(Mietelski et al, , 2002Wą s, 1995, 1997;Mietelski and Vajda, 1997;Gaca et al, 2006). During these studies, the key species was X. badius, but samples consisting of more than 30 other species were collected and examined for radiocesium as well.…”

Uranium, thorium and rare earth elements in macrofungi: what are the genuine concentrations?

“…Several authors have reported activities of U and Th isotopes in macrofungi (Mietelski et al 2002;Wichterey and Sawallisch 2002;Baeza and Guillén 2006;Turhan et al 2007). In general, activities of 234 U, 238 U, 228 Th, 230 Th and 232 Th in macrofungi from background areas were below 10 Bq kg -1 (dry weight).…”