Surface ground contamination and soil vertical distribution of 137Cs around two underground nuclear explosion sites in the Asian Arctic, Russia

Radiostrontium hot spot in the Russian Arctic: ground surface contamination by 90Sr at the “Kraton-3” underground nuclear explosion site

“…The distributions obtained with respect to 137 Cs for these cores are also shown for comparison. Earlier we demonstrated (Ramzaev et al, 2007a) that for the mechanically undisturbed carbonate soils collected in Yakutia around the ''Kraton-3'' and the ''Crystal'' underground nuclear explosion sites, the experimental values of the vertical distribution of radiocaesium closely conform to a simple exponential function:…”

“…The activity concentrations for 59 sub-samples analysed ranged from 5 to 191 000 Bq kg À1 , d.w., with a median of 2200 Bq kg À1 and an average and standard deviation of 15 200 AE 38 200 Bq kg À1 . Data on 137 Cs contamination for the same samples are reported in a previous paper (Ramzaev et al, 2007a).…”

“…Soil samples, frequently including epigeic carpet-forming vegetation e moss, lichen, grass e were obtained and prepared for further radiometry using methods and instruments described elsewhere (Ramzaev et al, , 2007a. Table 1.…”

“…For abbreviation of the plots see Table 1. a Cited after Ramzaev et al, 2007a. migration of radiostrontium than radiocaesium in the soils studied. The B l values calculated for 137 Cs and 90 Sr vertical distributions for all the plots sampled were significantly correlated (r ¼ 0.69, P ¼ 0.001, n ¼ 18).…”

“…1). A detailed description of the nuclear explosion and its consequences to the environment and to the participants of the experiment are given in Burtcev and Kolodeznikova (1994), Myasnikov et al (2000), Gedeonov et al (2002), Ramzaev and Göksu (2006), and Ramzaev et al (2007a).…”