Is It Possible to Use 90Sr and 137Cs As Tracers for the Aeolian Dust Transport

Abstract

A noble approach for the estimation of the deposition of the Asian dust over Japan by using atmospheric anthropogenic radioactivity, 90Sr and 137Cs, is proposed. Those radioactivities once deposited globally onto the ground by the past nuclear test, etc. are resuspended along with the surface soil particles in the air by the storm and deposited again on the ground. The difference in 137Cs/90Sr activity ratios in the surface soil between dry and wet climatic conditions gives a clue to know about the source of the dust. It was found that the average activity ratio in the deposited material (average: 2.1, n=82) at MRI, Tsukuba in the 1990s is not close to that of the surface soil taken in neighborhood (median: 6.8, n=8), which had been considered as the primary source. While, it is close to that of the soil samples taken in the arid area in the Asian continent (median: 2.0, n=4), which is the one of the source regions of the aeolian dust. Thus we can reasonably assume that deposited dust in Tsukuba is brought not only from the neighboring fields, etc. but also from the arid area in the continent. Using a simple two-component model it was estimated that the Asian dust may transport about 90% of 90Sr and 70% of 137Cs depositions observed in Tsukuba in the 1990s. Also, Asian dust may transport about 2/3 of the dust deposited in Tsukuba.