Tracing anthropogenic nuclear activity with 129I in lake sediment

Anthropogenic 129I in the sediment cores in the East China sea: Sources and transport pathways

“…The iodine in marine sediment mainly originates from decomposition of biota debris with high iodine content (marine algae: 10-6000 μg/g, most values: 200-300 μg/g, mineral ˂ 1 μg/g), which absorbs and concentrates iodine from seawater (around 50 μg/L) (Hou et al, 2010;Hou et al, 1998;Price and Calvert, 1973). The 127 I concentrations in CORE-1 (5.0-37.0 μg/g) and CORE-2 (15.0-42.5 μg/g) is lower than that in most marine sediments, including those from Oregon (98-243 μg/g), Kattegat (100-200 μg/g) and Baltic Sea (42.7-75.9 μg/g) (Moran et al 1998;López-Gutiérrez et al, 2004;Aldahan et al, 2007), but higher than most values of lake sediments collected from Sweden (5.0-10.0 μg/g) and Philippines (2.97-20 μg/g) (Englund et al, 2008;Zhang et al, 2018). The values are in the similar level with that in the mixed zone of river and ocean, such as Jiaozhou Bay (20-36 μg/g) and the Mississippi River Delta (5.7-34.3 μg/g) (Fan et al, 2016;Oktay et al, 2000) (Table SI2).…”

129I record of nuclear activities in marine sediment core from Jiaozhou Bay in China

“…This event released large amounts of radioactive substances including 1.3-6 kg 129 I into the environment (Hou et al, 2009b). Although most of this radioactive material was deposited in the vicinity of Chernobyl NPP, an enhanced signals of 129 I and 137 Cs have been observed at locations of great distances (Englund et al, 2008;Hou et al, 2003;Michel et al, 2015;Paul et al, 1987). Chernobyl derived radionuclides including 131 I have also been measured in a large area in China in various environmental samples including aerosols, vegetables and milk, and relatively high levels of 131 I were found the north part of China after the accident, including the Jiaozhou Bay area and the catchments of the Yellow River and others flowing into the bay.…”

“…In western and northern Europe, 129 I recorded in sediments is dominated by NFRP releases. The signals of the NWTs and nuclear accidents (Englund et al, 2008) (Englund et al, 2007;Gallagher et al, 2005). In Ireland, even the large releases of radioactive iodine during the Windscale accident in 1957 have been obscured by the 129 I releases from NFRPs (Gallagher et al, 2005).…”

“…These types of samples are widely distributed and have been used successfully to study historical releases of 129 I into the environment in a number of locations around the globe. Marine and lake sediment cores from Europe have shown to preserve valuable archives of 129 I (Aldahan et al, 2007;Englund et al, 2008;Santos et al, 2007). Sediment cores from the Baltic Sea, Kattegate, and Swedish lakes all reflect the fact that the two European nuclear fuel reprocessing plants (NFRPs) are the dominant source of environmental 129 I in the Europe.…”

Analysis of ¹²⁹I and its Application as Environmental Tracer

“…Analysis of the sediment core can be used to retrieve deposits/events in the past. The distributions of 129 I in marine sediment cores collected in Kattegat [54] and in lake sediment collected from Sweden [41,55] and UK [56] have been reported. Fig.…”