Studies will look at radiation pathways in the ocean from Fukushima

Ken Buesseler, a chemical oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution says that "when it comes to the oceans, the impact of Fukushima exceeds Chernobyl.” Buesseler has been awarded a rapid-response grant from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Division of Ocean Sciences to establish baseline concentrations of several radionuclides in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. He and colleagues will establish a baseline radionuclide data set for the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, using an east-to-west network of sampling stations where the ability to retrieve ocean water samples already exists. Chemical oceanographer Henrieta Dulaiova of the University of Hawaii, has also been awarded a grant to study the fallout in the oceans. Buesseler has made geochemical studies of the Black Sea using Chernobyl radio tracers and has looked at the behavior of fallout plutonium in seawater and groundwater.