Abstract
Plutonium contaminated soil from the Republic of the Marshall Islands has been studied to determine the spatial and volume characteristics of contamination on two scales: (1) in macroscopic masses, i.e., gram sized samples, and (2) in microscopic masses, i.e., 10's of μgrams to 1 mg. Three measures of volumetric homogeneity calculated from alpha track measurements on a plastic track detector (CR-39) are presented to quantitatively assess microspatial or microvolumetric variations. Data on the homogeneity of transuranic radioactivity is presented for four different particle size fractions of soil and in macro- and microvolumes. The nuclear track measurement technique is contrasted with radiochemistry/alpha spectrometry.
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Simon, S.L., Jenner, T., Graham, J.C. et al. A comparison of macro- and microscopic measurements of plutonium in contaminated soil from the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Journal of Radioanalytical and Nuclear Chemistry, Articles 194, 197–205 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02037628
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02037628