The social media team of Applied Radiation and Isotopes has selected our study on radionuclides in the sediments of the Danube river to be made available for three months as an open access publication!
The study was made possible by the Joint Danube Survey (2013) where a total of 68 samples were collected from both banks of the river, all along its length. 137Cs was measured by the team at the BEV on regular gamma-detectors. In our lab, the very patient Maria Kocadag then extracted 90Sr from the samples in a time consuming procedure (similar to published procedures (Steinhauser, Schauer, and Shozugawa 2013) and measured all samples on our liquid scintillation spectrometer.
The activities of both 137Cs and 90Sr are below 100 Bq/kg in all samples. In fact, 90Sr values were very low with only a few exception. For 137Cs we see a decrease along the length of the river from its source to its estuary.
References
- Steinhauser, Georg, Viktoria Schauer, and Katsumi Shozugawa. 2013. “Concentration of Strontium-90 at Selected Hot Spots in Japan.” PLOS ONE. Public Library of Science. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0057760.