Abstract
Samples of seaweed Fucus vesiculosus collected from Cumbria and the Isle of Man in 1980 have been analysed for their alpha and gamma radioactivity, using a combination of chemical separation and alpha and gamma spectrometry. The source of artificial radioactivity in the Irish Sea is primarily the effluent discharge from the nuclear fuel reprocessing facility at Windscale, and significant decreases in activity were seen with increased distance from the source. Seaweed measurements, used as a marker of the ambient seawater concentrations, allowed comparison of the environmental behaviour of different radionuclides on entering the marine environment. The nuclides could be divided into two categories: (a) 137Cs, 134Cs, 238Pu, 239 + 240Pu and 241Am and (b) 106Ru, 95Nb, 95Zr and 144Ce, dependent on their concentration distribution amongst the samples. Using the 134Cs/137Cs ratio, a relative time scale was established between the samples which allowed correction of all activities for decay during the time period since discharge, enabling comparison of the transport behaviour of the different radionuclides. It was found that the degree of conservation of the nuclides in seawater decreased in the sequences: zirconium > cerium > ruthenium and caesium > plutonium > americium.
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