Gamma radioactivity values from different soils and organisms on Skye, north west Scotland, five years post‐Chernobyl

Values of γ‐radioactivity were monitored in three sites on the Island of Skye (Hebrides, Scotland) approximately five years after the explosion of the reactor at Chernobyl, USSR. The sites chosen were all closely associated and comprised a podsolized area together with two areas exhibiting substantial peat deposits. 137Cs concentrations in the vegetation were found to be low although enhanced accumulation, probably due to translocation from the leaves (or also some accumulation from the soil), occurred in the woody tissue and certain plant storage organs. The importance of lichens as accumulators of pollutants is reiterated. The accumulation of radioactivity through trophic levels to herbivores was clearly denned. In both podsolized and peaty soils, radioactive products had migrated down through the soil profile and consequently away from the major rooting zones — thus the chances of uptake and thence accumulation back into the vegetation become further reduced; recovery is proceeding and this too will be linked to the half life of 137Cs

Biology · Earth science · Herbivore · Lichen · Peat · Plant life · Soil water · Trophic level · Vegetation (pathology) · Chemistry · Ecology · Environmental Chemistry · Environmental Science · Geology · Isotope Analysis in Ecology · Radioactive contamination and transfer · Radioactivity and Radon Measurements

• After chernobyl‐some data on radioactivity in scandinavia

  F B Pyatt, FB Pyatt•International Journal of…•1987

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