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arXiv:1103.4853nucl-ex

Arrival time and magnitude of airborne fission products from the Fukushima, Japan, reactor incident as measured in Seattle, WA, USA

J. Diaz Leon, D. A. Jaffe, J. Kaspar, A. Knecht, M. L. Miller, R. G. H. Robertson, A. G. Schubert

Abstract

We report results of air monitoring started due to the recent natural catastrophe on 11 March 2011 in Japan and the severe ensuing damage to the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear reactor complex. On 17-18 March 2011, we registered the first arrival of the airborne fission products 131-I, 132-I, 132-Te, 134-Cs, and 137-Cs in Seattle, WA, USA, by identifying their characteristic gamma rays using a germanium detector. We measured the evolution of the activities over a period of 23 days at the end of which the activities had mostly fallen below our detection limit. The highest detected activity amounted to 4.4 +/- 1.3 mBq/m^3 of 131-I on 19-20 March.

arXiv comments
7 pages, 5 figures, published in Journal of Environmental Radioactivity
Journal reference
Journal of Environmental Radioactivity 102 (2011) 1032 - 1038
DOI
doi:10.1016/j.jenvrad.2011.06.005
Subjects
nucl-exNuclear Experiment physics.ao-phAtmospheric and Oceanic Physics physics.geo-phGeophysics

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Linked by 2 identifiable commenters in 3 comments across 3 threads, from Apr 2011 to Jun 2020.

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Discussed in comments3 threads

  1. Scandinavian Monitoring Stations Detect Unexplained Radiation Spike over Europe 1 comment

    • Has anyone seen links to actual spectra from the monitoring organizations' counters? An example of the sort of thing I'm looking for: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1103.4853.pdf (see Figure 1)

      ISLView on HNParent context

  2. CERN experiment discovers five new particles 1 comment

    • LHC is a science experiment. Its job is to, first, check older results [1], and second, put nature to the test in a well-motivated and important way. In particular, LHC is the Higgs hunter, a messy [2] pathfinder before a precision Higgs-studying tool. It succeeded at that job…

      ISLView on HNParent context

  3. Fukushima from Afar: Realtime Data that Matters 1 comment

    • The scientific article behind this is interesting; it is at http://arxiv.org/abs/1103.4853 Quick summary: the researchers in Seattle take the building's air filters once a day, compress them into a block, stick the block in a lead vault, and use a gamma-ray analyzer on it. They…

      kensView on HNParent context

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