Seminar Ozean, Eis, Atmosphäre

The sources of plutonium in the environment are fallout from atmospheric nuclear testing, accidents and emission from nuclear facilities. The source characterisation of environmental plutonium is of high public interest, because plutonium is highly toxic and well suited for the production of nuclear weapons. Multi-collector ICPMS has been used to measure the 239Pu/240Pu in environmental samples at a precision of approximately 1% for sample sizes of 1pg. Results from several studies in the UK will be used to illustrate how these measuremnents have been used to reveal temporal variations in plutonium and to characterize sources of contamination.