Abstract
Specimens of a number of types of virgin soil in the Soviet Union were collected in July and August of 1982 in open areas down to a depth of 15 cm. The plutonium content was determined by a radiochemical method, using 50-g weights of soil. The radioactivity was measured by means of a low-background alpha flow counter and an ionization chamber containing a circuit with a 500-channel LP-4050 analyzer (counting efficiency 32%, background 9.8.10/sup -3/ pulses per minute at a threshold of 100 keV and a peak of 5 MeV). The detection limit was 1.7.10/sup -3/ Bq. The average specific activity of a Pu 239 and Pu 240 in the soils of the Soviet Union was 1.15 Bq/kg of air-dried mass, or 188 Bq/m/sup 2/. The average and limiting values obtained for the plutonium concentration in the surface levels of USSR soils are close to the data for other Northern-Hemisphere countries. This indicates that the contamination of the soil cover originates in global radioactive fallout.
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