Levels of 137Cs in game and soil in Opole Anomaly, Poland in 2012–2020

Radiocaesium Contamination of Mushrooms at High- and Low-Level Chernobyl Exposure Sites and Its Consequences for Public Health

“…The highest values of the specific activity in Table 1 are close to the mean values for fruiting bodies of fungi in the Opole Anomaly collected in 2019 [39]. The Opole Anomaly is well known for extreme levels of 137 Cs in Poland (surface activity exceeded 50 kBq/m 2 in 1986) [40]. The Opole Anomaly is quite close to the Opava region investigated in this study.…”

“…To estimate the strength of the linear relationship between the ratios of the specific activities of 137 Cs and 40 K (in Table 1 in the column a 137 /a 40 ) for and caps in both areas, a Pearson correlation test was applied. The Pearson correlation coefficient was equal to 0.93 and the p-value was less than 0.01 (p = 0.0074) indicating a strong linear relationship between the ratios of the specific activities in agreement with [1], which supports the hypothesis that the transport of 137 Cs from stipe to cap depends directly on 40 K concentration for all three investigated species.…”

“…A slightly higher level of both 137 Cs and 40 K is observed in the caps with an exception of Armillariella mellea in the Ostravice river valley for 137 Cs. The highest values of the specific activity in Table 1 are close to the mean values for fruiting bodies of fungi in the Opole Anomaly collected in 2019 [39].…”

“…Measurement times spanned the interval from 3.5 to 87 h. The obtained specific activities of 137 Cs and 40 K, recalculated for 1 November 2011 (middle of the collection period), are presented in Table 1. It is clearly seen that the specific activities of 137 Cs are higher in the Opava region, while the specific activities of 40 K are almost the same in both investigated areas.…”

“…A similar procedure was applied to the efficiency calibration for the 40 K 1460.82 keV gamma peak. Here, three samples of a powder 99.5% pure KCl provided by Penta, Czech Republic, of different heights were prepared (8.8, 15.3 and 20.6 mm), and the efficiency curve was approximated by a linear function (see Figure 3).…”